As local elections draw near, Taiwan's political parties have mapped out their campaign strategies to capitalize on the first local-government-level elections since the DPP swept to power.
The Jan. 26 local polls will elect 319 village, township and city heads and 879 county and city councilors.
The DPP, which announced its common campaign platform yesterday, said that it hopes to repeat the successes it enjoyed in the Dec. 1 legislative polls.
"As the party's common campaign platform in the legislative election received widespread public support, we have decided to continue the same appeals for reform and improvement in the upcoming elections in the hope of repeating the success we had [in December]," Hsu Yang-ming (
In the local elections, Hsu said, the party will focus on building "small but sufficient" local authorities and a new relationship between the central and local governments.
"To construct small but sufficient local governments, we propose that local governments carry out six major reform projects," Hsu said.
They are political, information, disaster prevention and relief, social services, culture and education, and environmental and hygiene reforms.
In the county and city-councilor elections, the DPP will concentrate on pushing for council reforms and improvements to the environment and quality of life, Hsu added.
"We hope to see a 10 to 20-percent increase in the number of seats we control after the elections," Hsu said.
The party has nominated 127 candidates to run in the elections for local heads and 305 to run in the elections for county and city councilors.
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) has nominated two candidates to run in the elections for local heads and 39 more to run in the elections for county and city councilors.
Hsiao Kuan-yu (
"Our common campaign platform is unity, local construction, and welfare benefits," Hsiao said.
In addition to conducting workshops to offer candidates useful and practical campaign strategies, Hsiao said, each candidate will receive a recommendation letter penned by the party's spiritual leader, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
"We hope that with his help, our candidates will garner a substantial number of votes from his loyal supporters," Hsiao said.
The party's goal is to see at least half of its candidates elected, Hsiao said.
The People First Party (PFP), meanwhile, is focusing on building its reputation. Spokesman Hsieh Kung-ping (謝公秉) said the nine-month-old party's nomination strategy is conservative but practical.
"We do not want to expand too much over a short period of time, because this will not help us build a sound reputation," he said.
The PFP has nominated 27 candidates to run in the elections for local heads and 267 candidates to run in the county and city councilor elections.
"Although we know it will be hard to get all our candidates elected, we'll try our best to reach that goal," Hsieh said.
The KMT, which has dominated local elections for years, nominated 324 candidates to run in the contest for local heads and 637 candidates to run in the county and city councilor elections.
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