What you need to know
This will be the 73-year-old politician's fourth time running for president since 2000.
The Chairman of the People First Party, James Soong, held a news conference this morning and in the media resource kit Soong included a declaration saying he will run in the 2016 presidential election.
This will be the 73 year-old politician’s fourth time running for president since 2000.
UDN reports, breaking down the first three times Soong ran for president and comparing the elections in 2000 and 2012, the percentage of votes he obtained has fallen considerably from 36.84% to 2.77%. Things seem to be going downhill for the politician, except for when he revved up votes in 2004 with Lian Zhan as his candidate for vice president.
But putting aside presidential elections, Soong’s election road has always been bumpy.
In the 2006 Taipei mayoral election, he only obtained 53,281 votes with a 4.14 vote percentage and suffered a crushing defeat to Hao Long-bin who secured a percentage of 53.81. After this election, Soong held a press conference and officially announced that he would retire from Taiwan’s political stage. But after Soong’s announcement, Wang Jin-ping came forward and said,"James Soong is willing to consider not retiring from politics."
Apple Daily reports, Soong criticizes the way Ma’s government has handled the textbook controversy in his declaration.
He says,"I can not understand why things have become so intense when the issue could have been openly discussed and resolved. There have even been deaths. I can not understand this bureaucratic mentality that has made authorities appear to be so indifferent. Is it that hard to come up with a way to ease the tension? Isn’t it our responsibility as politicians to avoid tragedies?"
Soong also questions why the curriculum guidelines can’t be postponed for a year until a new president can publicly deal with the issue.
Translated by Olivia Yang
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