Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), who is expected to assume the post of Presidential Office secretary-general later this month, is to visit former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Monday to discuss matters relating to the year-end New Taipei City mayoral election, sources said yesterday.
The visit is likely an attempt to persuade Su to run in the election as the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate, the sources said.
From 1997 to 2004, Su was county commissioner for then-Taipei County. The county became New Taipei City in 2010.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) and Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), as well as Taipei Deputy Mayor Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻), have expressed an interest in running as the DPP’s candidate in the New Taipei City mayoral election, but local opinion polls have shown that each has a support rating of less than 20 percent.
According to a private poll conducted by the DPP, Su is evenly matched with former New Taipei City deputy mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), who was yesterday confirmed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) as its candidate for the election.
Both Su and Hou have garnered a support rating of more than 40 percent, with Su only trailing slightly behind Hou by a margin of less than 1 percentage point, the poll showed.
When pitted against Hou, former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) is bested by a margin of about 20 percentage points, it showed.
Wu, a member of Su’s faction, has been campaigning at the grassroots level since last year, but has failed to match up to Hou in polls.
If his party has considerations other than nominating younger members, it might as well nominate someone that has the best chance of winning the election, Wu said in an interview.
Asked for comment yesterday, Su’s daughter, DPP Legislator Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧), said only that her father’s positions align with the general consensus of the party, which is to win New Taipei City, adding that she believed DPP headquarters would make a wise decision.
Sources said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is also DPP chairperson, is scheduled to meet with Lo, Wu and Yu today.
The planned meeting prompted media speculation about whether it could be Tsai’s move to clear the path for Su to represent the DPP in the New Taipei City mayoral election.
DPP spokeswoman Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) yesterday said the DPP would not rush to nominate its candidate for the New Taipei City mayoral election, but would decide “after all things had been considered.”
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS