Candidates seeking to run in any of the nine local elections on Nov. 24 can register their candidacy today, the first day of a five-day registration period, according to an election schedule announced by the Central Election Commission, the Central News Agency reported yesterday.
Registrations are open from today through Friday, before a draw on Oct. 19 to determine each candidate’s number to use in the nine-in-one elections, in which mayors, county commissioners, city and county council members, township mayors and council members, as well as local officials down to the neighborhood level, are to be elected nationwide, the commission said.
A total of 11,047 public officials are to be elected on Nov. 24, including 22 mayors, 912 councilors, 204 township mayors, 2,149 township council members, and 7,760 heads of villages and boroughs, it said.
In conjunction with the local elections, referendums on several issues will also be held, in which Republic of China citizens aged 18 or older will be eligible to cast ballots.
The commission estimated that 582,718 people in the 18-to-20 age group would be eligible first-time voters, but could only cast referendum votes, not votes for public officials.
The commission said it expects an estimated 3,979,099 first-time voters who would be allowed to vote in both categories.
There would be 19,208,490 people aged 20 or older who could legally vote in the nine-in-one elections, which is 869,066 more than the 2016 presidential election, the commission said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu
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