Wei Yao-chien (Chinese: 魏耀乾; pinyin: Wèi Yàoqián; Wade–Giles: Wei4 Yao4-chʻien2; born 5 February 1950) is a Taiwanese politician.
Wei Yao-chien | |
---|---|
魏耀乾 | |
Member of the Legislative Yuan | |
In office 1 February 1990 – 31 January 1996 | |
Constituency | Tainan |
Personal details | |
Born | Jiali, Tainan County, Taiwan | 5 February 1950
Political party | Independent |
Other political affiliations | Home Party Democratic Progressive Party |
Alma mater | University of Essex National Taiwan University |
Occupation | politician |
Profession | dentist |
Wei was born on 5 February 1950 in Tainan to a conservative family with strong ties to the Kuomintang.[1][2] He attended the University of Essex and completed further study at Harvard University as well as Yale University before he was trained as a dentist.[1][2] He later earned a master's degree in political science at National Taiwan University.[1]
Wei turned against the Kuomintang after Fang Su-min and Lin Yi-hsiung's twin daughters were stabbed to death in 1979.[2] His friendship with Frank Hsieh also contributed to Wei's political beliefs.[2] Wei represented Tainan for two terms on the Legislative Yuan, from 1990 to 1996, as a member of the Democratic Progressive Party.[2][3] During his legislative tenure, Wei became known for fighting fellow lawmakers.[2] Wei alluded to his dental practice in describing physical confrontation attempts to "pull the tiger's teeth."[2] Wei left the Democratic Progressive Party to run an independent campaign for the Tainan County magistracy in 2001. Though a July 2001 opinion poll showed that Wei had not garnered much support,[4] a potential split in the Pan-Green Coalition's voter base between Wei and Su Huan-chih was still considered damaging to Su.[2][5] Wei's campaign was run by former Tainan deputy magistrate Lin Wen-ding.[6] Wei was placed on the Home Party list during the 2008 legislative elections, but not elected to the Legislative Yuan.[7] He contested the Lienchiang County magistracy as an independent in 2018.[8][1]
2018 Lienchang County mayoral results[9] | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
No. | Candidate | Party | Votes | Percentage | |
1 | Su Po-hao (蘇柏豪) | Tree Party | 927 | 12.51% | |
2 | Chu Hsiu-chen (朱秀珍) | Independent | 1,284 | 17.33% | |
3 | Wei Yao-chien | Independent | 336 | 4.54% | |
4 | Liu Cheng-ying | Kuomintang | 4,861 | 65.62% | |
Total voters | 10,773 | ||||
Valid votes | 7,408 | ||||
Invalid votes | |||||
Voter turnout | 68.76% |
In 2006, Wei served as executive director of the Million Voices Against Corruption, President Chen Must Go campaign led by Shih Ming-teh.[10] In this position, Wei acted as a spokesman and represented the campaign to the Legislative Yuan.[11][12] In February 2014, Wei founded the Jiawu Regime Change organization alongside fellow former legislators Chen Wan-chen and Payen Talu, among others, to advocate Taiwan independence.[13] Wei was in attendance at Tsai Ing-wen's presidential inauguration on 20 May 2016, alongside a group of protestors advocating for the replacement of the Constitution of the Republic of China with a Taiwan-centric supreme law.[14] In 2018, Wei and another former legislator, Liang Mu-yang , led a demonstration on the 71st anniversary of the 228 incident, again in support of a rewritten constitution for Taiwan.[15]