Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) on Saturday said he would run in the Taipei mayoral election next year and accused Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of overstepping his authority.
Yao said the mayor has failed to live up to the expectations of grassroots supporters during the three years he has been in office.
“The atmosphere at party headquarters is always changing, but the latest polls show that many DPP supporters feel that Mayor Ko is out of touch with the expectations that people had for his administration,” Yao said.
Ko has said he would break down the barrier between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, but ended up wandering between them, Yao said, adding that Ko’s political activities have gone beyond the concerns of a mayor.
“Taipei is not only the nation’s capital, but also the engine of its economy. Yet, in the past few years the city’s economy has shrunk and has been surpassed by New Taipei City,” Yao said, adding that the problem seems to have stemmed from a lack of cooperation between civic groups and local government departments on issues such as land rights.
The Taipei City Government’s performance calls for a new mayor, Yao said, citing the city’s failure to launch the Taipei Twin Towers project after it was marred by corruption allegations in 2014.
There is a lack of enthusiasm about the Summer Universiade that is to take place in Taipei next month, whereas Tokyo residents are already excited about the 2020 Olympics, Yao added.
Yao said he would continue promoting “green” energy, “smart” technology and other infrastructure projects after the Universiade, but added that he hopes the city would put all of its energy into the Games and return to other projects after the event is over.
Yao said the DPP would hold its national congress in September and is expected to discuss the candidates for next year’s elections as well as the party’s relationship with Ko.
The DPP would await the results of a public opinion poll before deciding whether to maintain ties with Ko, a source said.
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
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
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
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS