Leaders of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and Green Party Taiwan have asked President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to implement reforms as promised to lower the electoral threshold, saying that small parties are being crowded out of existence.
The thresholds in the upcoming election are too high, TSU Chairman Liu Yi-te (劉一德) said, adding that a party must receive at least 5 percent of ballots to be granted legislator-at-large seats and 3 percent of the party-vote ballots to receive a state subsidy of NT$50 per vote.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have “reaped millions from the national treasury,” Liu said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
The DPP and the KMT have dominated the nation’s political landscape and received state financing and vote subsidies, he said, adding that only in recent years has the rise of the New Power Party (NPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) ended the duopoly.
Meanwhile, smaller parties are being crowded out, and can no longer receive state subsidies, Liu said.
TSU Secretary-General and former legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) said that the high threshold has denied smaller parties’ legislator-at-large representation in the Legislative Yuan.
If the situation persists, there would be no checks-and-balance mechanism overseeing Taiwan’s two major parties, and no scrutiny against corruption and influence peddling by legislators and officials, Chou added.
Green Party Secretary-General Wang Yen-han (王彥涵) said that increasingly more people have negative feelings toward the DPP and the KMT, and they should be provided with a chance to vote for other parties.
However, as they are concerned with not exceeding the threshold, many of these “disaffected” voters head toward the TPP or the NPP as the third political force, which has made it even harder for smaller parties to survive, Wang said.
The prospective candidates who have dropped out of the presidential election in the past weeks include former Tainan County commissioner and Taiwan Renewal Party Chairman Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智), and Sovereign State for Formosa and former Control Yuan president Wang Chien-shien (王建?).
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS