After the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) suffered sweeping losses in Saturday’s legislative elections, TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) said the party does not rule out disbanding.
The TSU gained only 2.51 percent of the party votes in Saturday’s legislative elections, failing short of the 5 percentage point threshold to be awarded a legislator-at-large seat and the 3.5 percentage point threshold to receive subsidies.
Neither of the two district legislative candidates nominated by the TSU were elected.
Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) resigned as TSU chairman on Monday.
In his speech, Huang recounted the TSU’s legislative achievements and said the party had “fully honored its commitment to the soil and people of Taiwan” and accomplished “its objectives for this phase” by carrying out its “founding mission to defend Taiwan’s national sovereignty and to protect the rights and welfare of the common people.”
Lin said the party will discuss the TSU’s future direction and consult former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), whom the TSU views as its spiritual leader, adding that a decision would be announced no later than Feb. 1.
The TSU was established in July 2001 after a call from Lee to create a party that would “secure democracy and strengthen Taiwan” and to give pro-localization voters another political choice besides the Democratic Progressive Party.
Lin said two paths for the TSU are under consideration.
The first strategy is to reduce TSU’s size and operations, and to continue with its signature message of resistance to China, he said.
The other option is to disband the TSU because it had fulfilled its founding mission of “helping the DPP to govern” and because the TSU “does not rule out” the alternative of “making the curtain call on a good show,” he said.
Lin said that during the eight years of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pro-China administration, the TSU had acted as “the brake against the radical unification agenda,” and should be credited for helping to bring about the 2014 Sunflower movement.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS