The People First Party (PFP) yesterday announced its first batch of candidates for the year-end local elections, nominating 20 people to run for city and county councilor seats as it celebrated its 18th anniversary.
PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) made the announcements as he presided over a news conference at the party’s new headquarters on Taipei’s Songjiang Road.
Among the nominees are six candidates for the Keelung election, three for Taipei, two each for Taoyuan and Tainan, and one each for Hsinchu, Taichung and Kaohsiung, as well as one each for Yilan, Kinmen, Hsinchu and Miaoli counties.
“We are 18, we are an A-team,” Soong said, as he highlighted the seven incumbent city councilors on the list, including Taipei city councilors Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) and Lin Kuo-cheng (林國成); Keelung city councilors Hsu Li-li (徐莉莉), Chuang Ching-tien (莊錦田) and Yang Hsiu-yu (楊秀玉); Taichung City Councilor Hung Ching-fu (洪金福) and Yilan County Councilor Chen Chieh-lin (陳傑麟).
Soong said he hoped the candidates could become an unwavering force in service of Taiwan, its people and cross-strait peace.
Although the party has had its ups and downs over the past 18 years, the PFP has never forsaken its founding principle, which is not to serve the pan-green or pan-blue camps, but to be a team that fights for what it believes, Soong said.
Asked whether the PFP plans to field a candidate for the Taipei mayoral seat in the Nov. 24 nine-in-one local elections, Soong said it has yet to discuss the matter, but would announce its decision at an opportune time.
However, if another party and its candidate would support the idea of putting the “people first,” his party would be willing to endorse that candidate, Soong said.
The PFP, which split from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), does not govern any city or county. It occupies three out of the 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
RSS