New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) won a second term yesterday, with a narrow victory over his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) challenger, former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), by a razor-thin margin of 959,302 votes to 934,774, or 50.06 percent of the vote to 48.78 percent
Although Chu has retained his mayoral post and his stock looks set to rise in the KMT’s senior hierarchy, the closeness of the result nevertheless came as a surprise to most political observers.
In the near future, Chu could be a force to be reckoned with and a major influence in the party, because he is the only KMT member to hold on to his municipality.
GRAPHIC: TT
Initial numbers from exit polls had both the KMT and DPP camps on the edge of their seats. Yu went in front in the early results, then it was Chu’s turn to go ahead as the lead changed several times.
The tight race proceeded through the early evening with no clear winner, as poll results trickled in from the 12 electoral districts in the nation’s most populous municipality.
Chu began to grab a narrow lead just before 7pm and he held on for the victory with the results announced after 9pm.
However, Yu almost snatched victory from Chu, a mayor widely seen as having considerable support among the electorate, and with the resources and the organizational advantages of being the ruling party in New Taipei City.
When the race began, Yu knew he had to fight an uphill battle, as most surveys had Chu possessing a large double-digit lead. Besides tabling well-received urban renewal and housing policies to redevelop the municipality, in the final weeks Yu narrowed the gap by advocating food safety and consumers’ rights.
He received a lot of support from civic groups and local communities after targeting the food scandals of the past few years, particularly by seeking compensation for consumers by launching a class-action lawsuit against Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), the food conglomerate which was involved in several of the adulterated food scandals and which was alleged to have made a large profit by benefiting from a land rezoning deal in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重). Yu criticized Chu for approving the deal.
By comparison, in the 2010 New Taipei City mayoral election Chu had prevailed over DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) by a margin of 1,115,536 votes to 1,004,900, 52.61 percent to 47.39 percent.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS