Politicians from the People First Party (PFP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday expressed irritation at the possible endorsement of a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate by Miaoli County Commissioner Fu Hsueh-peng (
Responding to reports that the non-aligned Fu was thinking of collaborating with the DPP, PFP Legislator Hsu Yao-chang (
Complaints
Hsu said that many of Fu's supporters as well as his own are pan-blue-camp stalwarts who had complained to him about Fu's decision on Tuesday.
"If I suddenly change flags from the PFP to the DPP, how could our supporters accept this? How could they vote for me?" Hsu asked.
Fu yesterday said that his cooperation with the DPP followed from a promise the party had made that it would nominate a Hakka candidate, and that he was determined to do what he could to ensure the county's next commissioner would be a Hakka.
Ethnic Rivalry
In contrast, Fu said, the candidate nominated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Liu Cheng-hung (
Liu yesterday called Fu a troublemaker and said he was disturbing the harmony between ethnic groups. For his part, Fu said that the KMT had expressed little sincerity about cooperating with him.
About 60 percent of people in Miaoli County are Hakka. It is also the county with the largest Hakka population.
Fu said that there were only two people he would consider endorsing in the year-end elections given that Hsu was not willing to run for the DPP. One is the director of the county government's Bureau of Public Works, Han Hong-en (韓鴻恩), and the other is Miaoli City Mayor Chiu Bing-kun (邱炳坤). Both men are Hakka.
"But the final say on the candidate rests with the DPP," Fu said.
Fu made no mention of one other possible candidate mentioned by the DPP on Tuesday, Miaoli Deputy County Commissioner Chen Hsiu-lung (
But pan-blue camp members were not the only people unhappy about the pending collaboration.
TSU legislative caucus whip Ho Min-hao (
"The DPP often says that the pan-green camp should work together and so on, but we still haven't seen the DPP's sincerity in its actions," Ho said.
disappointed
The probable TSU candidate for the Keelung mayoral election, Chen Chien-ming (
"Ironically, [pursuing] its own interest, the DPP has been quick to bring about cooperation with Fu, who represents PFP power, but is turning a cold shoulder to the request of the TSU that the DPP always call it its brother," he said.
Taiwanese barista Xie Yi-chen (謝溢宸) recently triumphed at the 2024 World Coffee Championships, taking home 1st place in the World Latte Art category. Xie, 28, impressed the judges in the final round with patterns of a whale, a moose, and a dragon in the three-day competition that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from June 27-29, clinching the title of latte art world champion during his first time representing Taiwan on the world stage. At a press conference held by the Taiwan Coffee Association on Thursday, Xie said that creating latte art gives him a tremendous feeling of achievement. Speaking about his entries in
TRAVEL CONVENIENCE: The program is to shorten wait times while passing through airport checks and would start for Taiwanese from January next year Japan is to launch a new program to expedite entry procedures for Taiwanese starting from January next year. The Japanese government is planning to introduce new rules to shorten the time it takes foreign travelers to pass through immigration, thereby attracting more tourists to visit, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported yesterday. An airport preclearance program would be implemented to allow foreign travelers to finish some screenings at their departure airport’s terminals and undergo simple confirmation procedures upon arrival, it said. The program would initially be applied to travelers from Taiwan from January next year and could be extended to travelers from elsewhere depending
The annual Taipei Summer Festival, which starts today, is to tone down its fireworks displays, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said on Monday. Fireworks displays are to be held at the riverside site in Datong District’s (大同) Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area on four days at this year’s festival, with the first today, and then on Wednesday next week, July 31 and Aug. 10, the department said. There were eight displays last year, with the reduction aimed at minimizing inconvenience to local residents, it said. The first three shows, which are all on Wednesdays, are to last for five minutes, while the final
EYE ON MAYORS: The DPP would file a complaint with the Control Yuan against Ko and Chiang over their handling of reports of abuse at a preschool in the city The Taipei City Government’s belated response under Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and his predecessor, Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), to alleged child sex abuse at a kindergarten resulted in more children being victimized, two Taipei City Councilors said yesterday. A Taipei preschool teacher has been charged with sexually abusing six children from 2021 to last year at a school registered to his mother. Prosecutors are reportedly considering additional charges amid a wave of new accusations allegedly linking the suspect to 20 other abused children and the discovery at his residence of more than 600 sexually explicit videos featuring minors. The