Another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker has declined to run on a KMT ticket for a legislative seat in southern Taiwan.
KMT legislator-at-large Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉) was expected by the party to run in Pingtung County, but is said to have turned down the offer.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily reported Su saying on Monday that since the KMT has traditionally performed weakly in Pingtung’s third electoral district, where the KMT wanted him to run for a legislative seat, the chance of winning is slim if a traditional “blue-green face-off” is played out.
He said that the party could cooperate with former Taiwan Solidarity Union secretary-general Huang Chao-chan (黃昭展), — who plans to run as an independent — following a model set up by non-affiliated Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). While Ko ran as an independent, his victory over KMT candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) in last year’s nine-in-one elections is widely believed to have been partly due to the Democratic Progressive Party’s “polite yielding.”
Huang would be facing DPP Legislator Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) if he steps into the ring.
Su did not respond to telephone calls from the Taipei Times yesterday.
Reports have said the KMT faces a predicament in that few want to represent the party in central and southern Taiwan, prompting the party to consider disciplinary action against members who do not abide by party decisions.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said the problem is for party headquarters to deal with.
“Is coercion going to work [when it comes to] elections?” Wang asked.
The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) said on Sunday that KMT Pingtung chapter director Liao Wan-ju (廖婉汝) said Su promised to join the race in the district, and party headquarters “has a serious problem” with his decision to drop out.
It does not rule out the possibility of party discipline, Liao said.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS