The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday made an unofficial commitment to independent Taipei mayoral hopeful Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) that it would not nominate its own candidate in the election and reached an agreement with the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) that only one candidate would represent the pan-green camp in the New Taipei City mayoral election.
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), who served as convener of a task force for the DPP’s Taipei mayoral primary, issued a joint statement after a two-hour meeting with Ko that the DPP agreed to cooperate with the independent candidate to end the decade-long governance of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in Taipei.
The DPP pledged that it would not ask Ko to join the party should he win the election and that the party would not interfere with Ko’s personnel decisions, Gao said, adding that the 27 DPP candidates in the Taipei councilor elections would support Ko’s campaign.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The meeting, which gathered the National Taiwan University Hospital physician and several DPP officials, including Gao and deputy secretary-general Hung Yao-fu (洪耀福), was held after Ko beat DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) in an opinion poll conducted by the DPP on Friday that aimed to finalize the sole pan-green camp candidate and boost the chances of defeating KMT nominee Sean Lien (連勝文).
The DPP’s decision not to nominate its own candidate in the Taipei mayoral election will not be official until the Central Executive Committee meets tomorrow, but the joint statement has erased any possibility that the party would renege on its promise to work with Ko, which at one point was creating confusion after the announcement of the poll result on Friday.
As part of the reciprocal commitment, Ko agreed to hold talks with DPP candidates in other mayoral and commissioner elections to formulate “shared platforms” and, if he wins the election, take the same positions as DPP mayors and commissioners on major policy discussions.
Ko also pledged to campaign for DPP candidates in the Taipei councilor elections.
Meanwhile, the DPP, led by former party secretary-general Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), convener of a special committee in charge of seven-in-one elections affairs, held talks with the TSU yesterday and both sides agreed to hold a public opinion survey by the end of this month to determine the final pan-green camp New Taipei City mayoral candidate in a similar format to the Taipei mayoral primary.
Former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), the DPP’s candidate for the New Taipei City mayoral election, will compete with TSU Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) in the primary poll.
The pan-green camp candidate’s rival in New Taipei City remains unclear as New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) has yet to announce whether he will seek re-election.
If Chu decides to run for the presidency in 2016, the most likely replacement candidate would be New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜).
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