Having three political parties in the legislature with each controlling less than half of the seats would be an important turning point for Taiwan’s politics, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
Ko, the chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), made the remark on the sidelines of a campaign event for a TPP legislative candidate when asked about Hon Hai Precision Industry founder Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) comments about his ideal number of parties in the legislature.
Gou on Saturday said that having two major and two minor parties in the legislature would be ideal, as it would give people more options, as opposed to having one dominant party or two balancing parties.
Photo: Hsu Kuo-chen, Taipei Times
If there are two major parties and one minor party, the latter might become arrogant, he added.
Gou’s aides have been included in the TPP’s and People First Party’s (PFP) legislator-at-large nominee lists, and they are among the TPP’s legislative candidates for the Jan. 11 elections.
Ko said that Gou simultaneously supports the TPP and PFP, and probably supports some Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, so he would want to expand his influence as far as possible.
However, in the single-district, two-votes system, it is difficult for “third force” parties to gain influence, Ko said.
Over the past two decades, the New Party, the PFP, the Taiwan Solidarity Union and the New Power Party have gained popularity, but then declined, he said.
“If third-force parties become ‘small pan-blue or pan-green parties,’ they would be repeating the failed experiences and will likely not succeed,” Ko said.
That is why the TPP emphasizes “national governance” and does not want to take part in the conflict between the pro-independence and pro-unification camps, he said.
Having three parties with each controlling less than half of the legislative seats would be a chance for Taiwan to “reboot,” Ko said.
Ko also talked about TPP legislator-at-large nominee Ann Kao (高虹安), who is the vice president of the Hon Hai Technology Group Industrial Big Data Office and considered to be among the so-called “Gou’s army.”
Gou had recommended a list of seven people and Kao was chosen as the most suitable nominee through internal party discussions, Ko said.
Ko said that the TPP’s candidates come from different fields, so he does not view Kao as being in Gou’s army, but as someone Gou had recommended.
He believes that “if everyone does what they should do to the utmost, the combined result would be the maximum benefit of Taiwanese society,” Ko said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS