The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) added its second batch of 10 legislative candidates to its platform, it said yesterday, while Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who is the party’s chairman, said the TPP’s goal is to prevent any single party winning more than half the legislative seats in the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 11.
The candidates, all under the age of 45, identify with “pushing the pan-blue and pan-green camps to the side to allow for the people to be in the center,” the party said.
Ko at a campaign event in Kaohsiung said that ever since he left his former job as head of traumatology at National Taiwan University Hospital to enter politics in 2014, many voters have told him that they support him because he could achieve what others could not in breaking the pan-green, pan-blue divide.
Photo: Wang Chun-chung, Taipei Times
By nominating TPP legislators, he said he wants to prove that they can gradually realize what others thought was impossible.
The TPP wants to change Taiwan’s political culture, he said, adding that its participation in the legislative election is a social movement toward achieving that goal.
Ko said the party would also nominate 34 people for legislator-at-large seats, and their goal is for no party to win more than half of the legislative seats, so that minor parties could play a significant role in leading Taiwan to break away from the long-term battles between the pan-blue and the pan-green camps.
The 10 legislative candidates announced by the TPP include: Yen Yao-hsing (顏耀星), a former National Assembly representative, who would run in Tainan’s first constituency; former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kaohsiung delegate Ao Po-sheng (敖博勝), who would run in Kaohsiung’s eighth constituency; Chang Yue-jiang (張渝江), deputy chairman of Taichung Civil Engineers Association, who would run in Taichung’s fourth constituency; and Lee Min-wei (李旻蔚), daughter of Democratic Progressive Party New Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsu-tien (李余典), who would run in New Taipei City’s third constituency.
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
A Japanese space rocket carrying a Taiwanese satellite blasted off yesterday, but was later seen spiraling downward in the distance as the company said the launch attempt had failed. It was the second attempt by the Japanese start-up Space One to become the country’s first private firm to put a satellite into orbit, after its first try in March ended in a mid-air explosion. This time, its solid-fuel Kairos rocket had been carrying five satellites, including one from the Taiwan Space Agency and others designed by Japanese students and corporate ventures. Spectators gathered near the company’s coastal Spaceport Kii launch pad in Japan’s
RSS