The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) plans to hold rallies in the last weekends of this month and during “golden week” from Jan. 1 to 10 in a bid to win a legislative majority in next month’s elections, party sources said yesterday.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), seeking re-election for the DPP, and DPP vice presidential candidate William Lai (賴清德), are to headline the events, they added.
For the final two weekends of December, the DPP will concentrate on Taipei and New Taipei City, with Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) and Lai riding in motorcades on Dec. 22, in a push for DPP legislative candidates, said a DPP insider who declined to be identified.
Photo: CNA
For weekend of Dec. 29, the party would focus on DPP legislative candidate Enoch Wu (吳怡農) in Taipei’s third electoral district, with the theme of “Down with Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) to safeguard Taiwan.”
Wu Sz-huai, who is placed fourth on the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) legislators-at-large list, generated controversy by attending a 2016 event in Beijing celebrating the 150th anniversary of Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) birth and standing for the Chinese national anthem.
“Most people are in agreement to get rid of Wu Sz-huai, and almost every DPP candidate has joined in Enoch Wu’s campaign call, ‘Down with Wu Sz-huai,’ and the issue has found rapport among the public,” DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) said yesterday.
“One poll shows that people across age groups, party affiliation, education level and location have concerns about the KMT’s legislators-at-large list. A total of 62.3 percent of voters said they are not happy about KMT’s list, and within KMT supporters, about 50 percent also expressed dissatisfaction for it,” Enoch Wu said.
DPP officials set the final stretch from Jan. 1 to 10 as the “golden week,” when it is to organize rallies across all cities and counties in Taiwan, starting in Hsinchu City (on Jan. 1); Pingtung County (Jan. 2); New Taipei City (Jan. 3); Yunlin County, Changhua County and Taichung (Jan. 4); Taoyuan, Tainan and New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊, Jan. 5); and Changhua, Yunlin, Yilan, Nantou and Hsinchu counties, as well as Taoyuan and Keelung (from Jan. 6 to 9).
On Jan. 10, the day before the elections, the party is to hold rallies in Kaohsiung and Taipei, with some adjustments likely depending on planning, officials said.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS