Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 23 November, 2018
By: Paula Chao

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) will both play presidential cards on the eve of the local elections on November 24.

All election activities must end at 10:00 pm on Friday. Campaigning via text message, emails or on Facebook on Saturday is against the law.

Over the past week, President Tsai Ing-wen and Premier William Lai have been busy campaigning for DPP candidates islandwide to seek support.

DPP Secretary-General Hung Yao-fu said Thursday that President Tsai will start her campaign rally in the northeastern Yilan county on Friday, then she will visit southern, central and northern Taiwan. Hung said Tsai’s appearance will help boost DPP candidates’ chances of winning.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/11/23
By: Christopher Bodeen and Johnson Lai, Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China’s pressure campaign looms large as Taiwan holds local elections Saturday in what is seen partly as a referendum on the policies of independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen.

Driven from power two years ago, the opposition Nationalists are hoping to regain territory by leaning on their pro-business image and a more accommodating line toward Beijing, which detests Tsai for her refusal to endorse its stance that the self-governing island democracy is a part of the Chinese nation.

The China factor and the potential impact on the next presidential election are giving added weight to the polls, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Taiwan’s Tamkang University.

“It’s more important than the usual local elections,” Huang said. “Confidence has been disrupted by the overall environment and the difficult relationship with the mainland.”    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/11/23
By: Chen Wei-ting and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Nov. 23 (CNA) High-speed rail trains and trains run by the Taiwan Railways

Administration (TRA) headed south from Taipei were mostly jammed on Friday, the day before nationwide elections for local government officials.

Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. said all regular trains set to depart from Taipei at and after 3 p.m. Friday were fully booked, and it ran an additional train departing from Nangang station in Taipei southbound to Kaohsiung at 7:15 p.m. to meet high demand.

The TRA faced a similar situation. It said almost every southbound train leaving Taipei at and after 6 p.m. Friday was packed, and most of the tickets for Tze Chiang express trains set to depart before Saturday noon were also sold.

Polling stations will be open until 4 p.m. on Saturday.    [FULL  STORY]

HAVING A SAY: Today’s election is on par with the last presidential election, with 15,886 voting booths for the 19,102,502 people who are expected to vote

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 24, 2018
By: Chen Yu-fu and Jake Chung  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

More than 19 million people are expected to head to voting booths today to cast their

ballots in the nine-in-one elections and 10 referendums.

Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Chen In-chin (陳英鈐) yesterday encouraged people to vote, reminding them to take their national identification card, stamp and voting notification billet with them.

Voters should use provided stamps to stamp the ballots, and not their personal stamps, for their votes to be valid, he added.

There are 19,102,502 eligible voters for the county commissioner and city mayor elections, and 19,053,128 eligible voters for the city and county councilor elections, the commission said.

There are 19,757,067 eligible voters for the referendums. Of those, 580,000 voters are 18 to 20 years old, it said.
[FULL  STORY]

The New York Times
Date: Nov. 22, 2018
By: Chris Horton

TAIPEI, Taiwan — As Taiwan prepares to hold local elections on Saturday, concerns are growing that Beijing’s long effort to sway the island’s politics has been armed with a new weapon: a Russia-style influence campaign.

The island’s elections for city mayors and county and village leaders will in part serve as a report card on President Tsai Ing-wen, whose administration has come under immense pressure from Beijing. But Taiwan officials are sounding alarms at what they say is a campaign by Beijing to spread disinformation that serves its agenda by exploiting the island’s freewheeling public discourse.

“There are those people who mistakenly think that if you simply shout falsehoods loudly, they’ll become real,” Ms. Tsai wrote on Facebooklast week. “We must not let them succeed.”

Taiwan officials say the population of 23 million is regularly fed misleading information in the news media and on social networks that range from unverified footage of large-scale Chinese military drills to false reports of stranded travelers being abandoned by the island’s government.    [FULL  STORY]

Coast guard conducts maneuvers Nov. 21-23

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/11/22
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Vietnam protested Thursday against live-fire drills by the Taiwanese coast guard near the disputed South China Sea island of Taiping, also known as Itu Aba.

In addition to Taiwan and Vietnam, several other countries, including China and the Philippines, also push claims of sovereignty over the mostly uninhabited islets and reefs dotted across the South China Sea.

Taiwan’s coast guard is conducting its final set of live-fire drills for the year, directed at potential threats from the waters around Taiping from November 21 to 23, the Central News Agency reported.

However, on Thursday, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry said it absolutely opposed the maneuvers, adding they “seriously infringed Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Spratly Islands,” of which Taiping is the largest.    [FULL  STORY]