The nation’s political parties are weighing the possible effects on legislative elections of a failure by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to strike a deal for a joint presidential ticket.
Friday marked the last day of candidacy registration for both presidential and legislative elections next year.
According to the Central Election Commission (CEC), 315 legislative candidates have registered to compete for 73 seats in the single-member districts, while 16 political parties registered their lists, with 178 nominees, for 34 at-large seats.
Photo courtesy of Huang’s campaign office
There will also be three lawmakers elected by members of the lowland indigenous people constituency and three by the highland indigenous people constituency.
For the at-large seats, the KMT, the TPP and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) all registered to the fullest extent of 34 candidates.
Smaller parties registered modestly, with the People First Party submitting a list of 10, the New Power Party and the New Party both eight, and the Taiwan Statebuilding Party with seven.
Photo: CNA
For the 73 districts of the country, the DPP nominated 69 candidates, the KMT 65 and the TPP 10, among others.
DPP party insiders said the party faced an uphill battle to retain its legislative majority.
In 10 to 15 districts, DPP candidates face fierce competition due to factors such as a division in the pro-DPP camp, or grudges remaining from the party primaries.
Photo: Peng Chien-li, Taipei Times
The breakdown of the KMT-TPP joint presidential ticket might benefit the DPP in those districts where the combined support for the KMT and the TPP is greater than that for the DPP, such as the Taipei and New Taipei, a DPP source said.
A KMT source said that the breakup was expected to have little impact on the outcome in KMT or DPP safe seats and the most affected districts would be those that the KMT has even odds of winning.
Neither the DPP nor the KMT seems to expect to achieve a majority in the legislature, with each aiming for 50 seats in the 113-member chamber.
There is still a possibility of the KMT and the TPP cooperating in the parliament, so long as “a total war” is not waged, the two sides can still compete under the tacit understanding of maximizing the non-DPP faction, a KMT source said.
The TPP has only entered two races, one in Kaohsiung and one in Taichung, outside its base in northern Taiwan.
The TPP’s other district candidates are in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Kinmen County and Lienchiang County (Matsu), where they will meet competition from both major parties. TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) younger sister Ko Mei-lan (柯美蘭) is running in Hsinchu City as an independent.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS