Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he would still run for re-election next year if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominates its own candidate.
Ko made the remark in response to a hypothetical question by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠) on the second day of question-and-answer sessions at the Taipei City Council.
Chin asked whether Ko would run for president in 2020 if the DPP were to nominate its own candidate for next year’s mayoral election and cost him re-election.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“I would return to being a doctor,” Ko said. “What I will do after returning to medicine can be considered later, but I think I should not answer too many hypothetical questions and should just focus on city policies, because too many people overthink too much.”
He said that he would run for re-election next year, regardless of the DPP’s support, but added: “I need their help and I am trying to gain their support, but if they do not want to help, I cannot do anything about it either.”
Ko said he has no idea what his relationship with the DPP is right now, but added that it is probably “somewhat good.”
A majority of city councilors asked him about Taipei Police Department Commissioner Chiu Feng-kuang (邱豐光), who the National Police Administration on Monday announced would be transferred to another post.
Ko had said he would not transfer Chiu as punishment for a protest during the Taipei Summer Universiade opening ceremony last month, but yesterday told city councilors that Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) informed him about the decision only about 30 minutes before it was announced.
Yeh told the mayor that there were too many protests in Taipei that were not properly handled, Ko said, but added that he told Yeh that the issue could be discussed and that as the Universiade was successful, making Chiu leave his post now would be like the Chinese idiom “after the cunning hare is killed, the hound is boiled,” or discarding of those who do the work after it is done.
Many KMT city councilors said the central government did not respect Ko, asking him if he would contest the appointment of Taichung Police Department Commissioner Chen Jia-chang (陳嘉昌) to Taipei.
Ko said that the Ministry of the Interior cited functional considerations for the appointment, not as punishment for Chiu, adding that he thinks that politics should not interfere with the police and military, as he does not want to make it hard for them to do their job, because they are civil servants.
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