Both Sinbei City mayoral hopefuls yesterday suggested that a near meet-up between their entourages was unsurprising, given that they have both ramped up their election events as part of campaign frenzy four days before Saturday’s elections.
Accompanied by firecrackers and watched by scores of spectators, their motorcades and dozens of supporters came within several city blocks of one another in tightly fought Yonghe (永和), part of Taipei County, which will be renamed Sinbei after its upgrade to a special municipality next month.
Smiling and waving to supporters, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) both stood in open-top jeeps leading motorcades stretching for dozens of meters.
PHOTO: CNA
Rain or shine, they said, they would make a last minute appeal to voters throughout the municipality, the country’s most populous.
Concerns over a clash were avoided after the two campaigns apparently agreed on a roadmap that avoided overlap, an issue that will grow more important as the two candidates are expected to meet again in Banciao (板橋) the day before the elections.
“It was a coincidence and it’s also another coincidence that we will meet again in Banciao. After all, we plan these events one or two weeks in advance,” said Chu, speaking of yesterday’s near miss.
Tsai agreed, adding that both camps likely chose Banciao as the site of their final election rallies on Friday because it is the seat of the county government.
“It’s the political and economic center of Taipei County and it will remain [so] for Sinbei City in the future,” she said.
The near meet-up took place just hours after Chu launched a new volley of criticism against Tsai’s campaign, attacking it for “masterminding an underhanded” letter campaign to sway voters through what he says are false accusations.
His campaign alleged that over the last two weeks, some residents have received documents alleging that Chu halted an old-age subsidy during his eight-year tenure as Taoyuan County commissioner and that he allowed factories to dump polluted water in Taoyuan rivers.
Speaking of the letters, signed by officials at Tsai’s campaign and a number of DPP city councilor candidates, Chu said he hoped Tsai, a former legal professor, “could maintain a scholar’s conscience and refrain from such actions.”
“[Unfortunately], the DPP has a history of using negative [attacks] in the last few days of any election ... I’m sure that it will happen again” before the election, he said, suggesting that Tsai could not prove her campaign’s allegations.
Officials at Tsai’s campaign have said that Chu’s campaign, which has filed a lawsuit over the documents, should respond truthfully to their assertions because their material is clearly sourced and signed. On the charges that Chu halted the old-age subsidy, the document is also signed by two DPP legislators, Kuo Jung-tsung (郭榮宗) and Huang Jen-shu (黃仁杼).
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but