Taichung mayor quits the DPP to run independently

Taichung City Mayor Chang Wen-yin (張溫鷹) yesterday completed her application to withdraw from the DPP and is scheduled to announce this morning her decision to run for re-election as an independent candidate.

"I'll make my arguments and decision clear [today]," Chang said yesterday, refusing to elaborate.

Former DPP party chairmen Shih Ming-te (施明德) and Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良), who have also withdrawn from the DPP and recently co-founded the political reform group Mountain, will join Chang at her press conference today.

Chang has more than once said that she would not be absent from the year-end elections.

Her re-election bid not only openly challenges the DPP's candidate Michael Tsai (蔡明憲), to whom she lost during the party's April primaries, but also the KMT's Jason Hu (胡志強), whom the People First Party is not likely to support.