Election news

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

Forget about Kerpie and Lien Sure-win, there’s lots of interesting stuff going on outside of Taipei.

Today in Hsinchu County, the KMT incumbent up for reelection, Chiu Ching-chun 邱鏡淳, was revealed to be living in a “luxury house” (i doubt it’s all that luxurious though) built on a plot of land zoned for a kindergarten. His major opponent, Cheng Yung-chin 鄭永金, who left the KMT to run as an independent, announced as much outside of Chiu’s front door.

Chiu’s expertly handled response: “I’m shocked to learn of this news, and I am very sorry…” “I have decided that effective immediate, my family and I will move out of our home in Qionglin Township. Everything else will be handled according to county government regulations.” Of course, he’s in charge of the county government…

2

Since I am only eligible to vote in Hsinchu county, those candidates makes me want to kill myself… This is not an election, it’s those local factions/familial clans trying to get a piece of the sweet sweet pie type of situation…

I am fucking sick and tired of Zheng 鄭永金 and Chiu 邱鏡淳’s years of rivalry bullshit, yeah, I used the f word, and that word isn’t frak.

Zheng and Chiu rivalry is the predecessor of the Ding Shouzhong v.s. Lien Shengwen rivalry. Zheng entered politics under the tutelage Chiu’s father 邱泉華. They both belonged to a local faction called Zhudong Song faction. When Zheng gets nominated by the KMT to run for Hsinchu County mayor back in 1997, Chiu decided to break from the party and run. The result was that they split the votes and resulted in a DPP win. DPP’s nominee, Lin, also belonged to another local faction with very little party loyalty.

In 2001, Chiu agreed to having KMT nominate Zheng with the promise that Zheng would only be county mayor for 1 term if he is elected. With the combined local factions, Zheng won that time, however insisted to run again in 2005. Chiu was furious, and almost ran for the DPP instead, but was talked out of it.

In 2009, the KMT finally nominated Chiu. Zheng’s bad blood with Chiu prompted him to quit the KMT, and support several possible candidates to run against Chiu, including his own wife. However, by then Zheng was under investigation for taking bribes for the construction of Hsinchu THSR station, and other alleged grafts, so his wife was equally unpopular. Finally, Zheng backed/pushed his friend Zhang Yaqin to run against Chiu. Zhang was also promptly kicked out by the KMT. With former DPP county mayor Lin’s support, they gave Chiu a really close run. Had it not have been an equally high amount of support for DPP’s nominee Peng, Zhang would have most likely won.

This year it’s the same old Chiu v.s. Zheng shit. Hok, you think Taipei mayoral election is choosing between two shits, no, this is choosing between two shits… Seriously, Chiu getting busted for occupying a government land dedicated for kindergarten doesn’t affect Chiu at all. Neither would not being in the KMT hurt Zheng’s chances. It’s all about what faction get a piece of pie.

3

Well no offense to the pretty interesting place that is Hsinchu County, but… It’s only got 500,000 people living in mostly rural or semi-rural areas and is not home to a ton of industry compared to say Taichung or Changhua. The KMT doesn’t particularly care who wins there as long as they wear the white-sun badge. Taipei is surprising because it’s the major prize for both parties and they basically just threw their arms up in the air and said “screw it, we’ll toss the two least desirable people possible into the ring.”

4

I think that 500,000 number is deceptive. Hsinchu county is growing rapidly, and has the highest total population growth rate 1.23% aside for island counties such as 連江縣, 金門縣 or 澎湖縣. Most people who moved into Hsinchu county would not move their Household registration to Hsinchu county, so there are actually a lot more people live in Hsinchu County than numbers released based on Household registrations. However, since they can’t vote here, they don’t matter. Most of those who did move their household registration, usually new mothers who wish to receive county government child-birth reimbursements, wouldn’t bother to vote. So the largest group of residents in Hsinchu county is almost non-existent politically to local elections.

All that means Hsinchu county is not at all planning for its rapid population growth, and Zhu-bei and Hsinchu city should be one metropolitan area but development is divided due to political non-sense. It doesn’t seem like Hsinchu will never grow into a more mature city, despite having much better potential than Taoyuan…

5

I agree. How long has How Long Been been longing for a worthy successor?

6

judging by his own example, his successor is still 27 years away from becoming an public official.

7

Speaking of Ding Shouzhong, the KMT must be kicking itself for nominating Lien Sheng-wen over him at this point.

8


every year i hear from one or two of my friends that their boss forced them to go support KMT rallies. now it’s black and white. if you don’t go, you lose pay.

9

That’s outrageous. But look at it on the bright side. After being forced to go to a Lien rally, maybe they won’t vote for him.

10

Democracy, LOL.

11

What company is this?

Surely, this is illegal…

12

signed by Yu Fu International (有富國際集團)'s CEO 洪村騫. Yu Fu is an urban redevelopment company.

13

Hahaha

Wait for the DPP to get power and then report it to the Central Election Commission. Not much point in trying to do it before then.

14

Tsai Ing-wen throws support behind Cheng Yung-chin. (Only the last two paragraphs; the rest is self-serving fluff. People News should be renamed to DPP news.)

DPP doesn’t even have a candidate in Hsinchu County, so I guess they’re gong with an “enemy of my enemy” strategy. Really, Cheng is KMT through and through and only left the party for the election, but at least on a local level, “blue” and “green” are often just clan allegiances that are up for grabs to the highest bidder (figuratively, but also sometimes literally). Also see: Yang Chiu-hsing in Kaohsiung.

15

sad really, wish Peng would at least try again.

16

Meanwhile, in Taiwan’s corruption capital: Keelung council speaker Huang Jing-tai is going to be detained for another two months as prosecutors look into several counts of corruption, influence peddling, the works. Huang is a candidate in the mayoral election but will be held incommunicado until well after the election wraps up. Oops.

To refresh everyone’s memory, Huang was the KMT’s candidate in the traditionally deep blue port city even after allegations of cash-for-contracts from development co.s surfaced. The KMT made no move to de-nominate him until he committed an ever bigger crime: his support in opinion polls was slipping. So they revoked his nomination and gave it to former immigration head Hsieh Li-kung 謝立功 instead. Unfortunately for them, he may be too squeaky clean for Keelung politics, which run on a more community-based vibe. If you don’t have connections, you won’t get far, and so the “iron ballots” the KMT thought it would get in Keelung just may end up going to DPP challenger Lin You-chang 林右昌.

You can think of Keelung as a remote, isolated community cut off from mainland Taiwan. That’s not the case, but people there seem to behave like it is. If you’re being “airdropped” in from the central government, it’s hard to convince locals that you’re one of them. But if Hsieh does manage to get elected, he would stand a chance of finally turning around the image of the city where nearly every recent mayor has been implicated in corruption.

17

Lmfao, the corruption capital.
Is their an American counterpart of that? :roflmao:

18

Several.

19

It would be like if every mayor of Keelung was Rod Blagojevich (except the corruption would all be related to land development).

Perhaps we can think of Keelung as a warlord-controlled area, albeit one where the warlord is elected. It’s close enough to Taipei to have money, but separated by enough mountains that even from Taipei 101 the central government can’t see what’s going on there. As a result, Keelungits are very insular and I think they care more about yiqi (義氣… hmmm, how to translate this… loyalty among members of a community?) than about rule-of-law. Word through the grapevine is that if Huang Jing-tai is convicted, it will implicate every last member of the Keelung city council… I am on the edge of my seat here!

20

I think Chicago has the reputation for this, due to the opaque building/zoning code:
https://www.economist.com/node/21548264

Americans here please feel free to correct me.