Candidates from the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) “New Tide” faction were absent yesterday as several politicians registered their candidacy for the party’s nomination for this year’s mayoral elections.
The DPP began the registration process for the DPP-controlled municipalities of Kaohsiung, Tainan, Yilan County and Chiayi County, where primary elections must be held to determine the nominees.
DPP legislators Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) and Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) registered their candidacy in the DPP primary for the Tainan mayorship, while DPP Legislator Chen Ou-po (陳歐珀) registered in the primary for Yilan County commissioner and Chiayi County Council Speaker Chang Ming-ta (張明達) registered in the Chiayi County primary.
Candidates from the New Tide faction — the party’s most influential subgroup — were absent from the nomination process for the all four cities and counties.
Following DPP Legislator Liu Shih-fang’s (劉世芳) withdrawal from the Kaohsiung nomination race on Thursday last week, Yilan County Acting Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德) yesterday renounced his candidacy for the DPP’s Yilan County primary, suggesting that the New Tide faction might forfeit mayoral elections in the four municipalities.
Huang renounced the presence of factions in the nomination race, saying that he would be “a mayor for [Tainan] residents instead of a mayor of a political faction.”
Huang, who has been leading other competitors in opinion polls, was a member of the New Tide faction before he withdrew after former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), then-DPP chairman, urged the dissolution of factions in 2004.
Rejecting media reports that the New Tide faction has decided to support him, Huang said his connection with Premier William Lai (賴清德), a major New Tide figure, has nothing to do with party factionalism, as all candidates are seeking the support of the former Tainan mayor.
Huang said he would not return to the New Tide faction if elected.
Meanwhile, Derek Chen, who was thought to have sewn up the DPP nomination for Yilan County commissioner before he began losing support due to his controversial farmland policies, said he would not participate in the primary, but did not explicitly exclude the possibility that the DPP might directly recruit him without resorting to a primary race.
Asked by media whether he would accept the DPP candidacy should the party decide to recruit him, Derek Chen said that Yilan residents cared more about who the DPP candidate was than whether the nomination process was democratic.
Although the party could face a considerable challenge in Yilan, as potential Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidates are popular among local voters, the four municipalities have been DPP strongholds, resulting in fierce competition between DPP politicians for the nominations.
The DPP plans to formally nominate candidates for the four municipalities on March 14, following a primary poll held from March 5 to March 9.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash