BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini is confident that Taiwan’s incoming President William Lai Ching-te will continue to consolidate Eswatini and Taiwan’s mutually beneficial relationship.
Dlamini said this yesterday during a dinner that was hosted by Taiwan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu. The dinner was hosted after the PM had visited the CECI Engineering Consultants, a company that is set to construct the Strategic Oil Reserve facility in Phuzumoya.
Speaking during Minister Wu’s dinner, Dlamini said he was confident that during President Lai’s tenure, the relationship between the two countries would remain uninterrupted. The PM also praised President Tsai Ing-wen for being resolute in her leadership in that country’s highest office. The President spent eight years as Taiwan’s President.
“To everyone here, I wish to seize this opportunity to salute and appreciate President Tsai for our conversation earlier today. Her unequivocal support for Eswatini certainly leaves an indelible mark, and she will forever be specially held in our hearts,” Dlamini said.
Taiwan’s incoming president, Lai Ching-te.
“The Kingdom of Eswatini also wishes to clearly express its confidence in the impending leadership of incoming President William Lai. It is our solemn conviction that the almost 56 years old Taiwan-Eswatini journey will remain uninterrupted. Essentially, that is Eswatini’s persuasion.”
The PM said in his capacity as incumbent Vice-President, His Excellency William Lai was highly commended by Eswatini for the support he had always extended to President Tsai, significantly on the Taiwan-Eswatini diplomatic relations.
The PM further thanked Minister Wu for arranging that the Premier and his team visit CECI Engineering Consultants. He described the visit as being a defining moment in several ways for Eswatini.
“Most significantly, the experience validated our confidence on CECI as we directly got exposed to the extra-ordinary services they are prepared to offer to Eswatini – more specifically the construction of the strategic oil reserve facility which is a major priority to His Majesty’s Government,” said the Prime Minister.
President William Lai Ching-te is set to become Taiwan’s President after winning the presidential elections in January this year. According to various online media reports, President Lai was elected president on January 13, 2024 with a plurality of 40.05 percent and is scheduled to be inaugurated on 20 May 2024. Outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the incumbent president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), was ineligible for re-election due to term limits. As such, the DPP nominated Vice President Lai Ching-te, who had secured the party chairmanship by acclamation in March 2023.
President Lai outsmarted other presidential election candidates, who included Hou Yu-ih (who got 33.49 percent) and Ko Wen-je (26.46 percent). The candidates stood for elections as leaders of Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), respectively.
Although the KMT and TPP had initially agreed to field a joint ticket in November 2023, the two sides were unable to reach a final agreement, and each announced their own vice presidential candidate on the last day of registration.
This presidential election had a turnout rate of 71.86%. This marked the first time since the 2000 election that the winning candidate obtained less than 50% of the vote, and the first time that a party won more than two consecutive presidential elections since direct elections were introduced in 1996.
