Celebrities who participated in yesterday's Kaohsiung councilor election had mixed results as some very popular candidates lost against expectations while others won.
TSU councilor candidate for Kaohsiung, Chen Ying-tsan (陳英燦), a TV anchor and news commentator at the local cable television Formosa TV, surprisingly lost his election bid.
Chen, who was one of the two candidates in Kaohsiung City's third electoral district, namely the Sanmin district (三民區), lost the election by a margin of 101 votes.
According to TSU lawmaker Cheng Chen-lung (程振隆), two factors contributed to Chen's failure: his lack of grassroots support and competition from another TSU hopeful in the same constituency.
Cheng told the Taipei Times yesterday that "Chen was seen as a strong candidate as his celebrity status should have boosted his chances but, surprisingly, the TSU's other candidate for the same area drew votes away from Chen and that's the main reason of Chen's failure."
"The TSU should have nominated only Chen, so that votes for Chen would not have been taken by the other candidate, Wu Chin-fa (吳錦發). The TSU was relatively inexperienced in estimating the vote distribution in this area," Chen said.
Apart from his votes getting siphoned off by another TSU candidate, Chen also lacked support from the so-called local "pillars," or "vote captains" who could have organized support for him.
Chen used to be a seasoned media worker and has extensive experience of working in TV and radio stations. He became a celebrity by hosting a news commentary program on Formosa TV. He is also known for his pro-independence stance.
Incumbent and veteran Kao-hsiung councilors who are very popular but failed to get re-elected include the KMT's Hung Mao-chun (洪茂俊) and Tsai Ma-fu (蔡媽福).
Hung was known for his outspokenness in the interpellation sessions of the city council. The reasons for his defeat in his bid to get re-elected a fifth time might be because their were too many nominees in his electoral district -- many of them younger and more viable competitors.
Tsai, who sought to get re-elected a fourth time yesterday, was also defeated although he did get a lot of votes.
His failure might be linked to his capricious party affiliations. Tsai was first a KMT member, but he joined the PFP after the 2000 presidential election. He then left the PFP this year and ran independently for the elections after he failed to win the PFP's nomination.
Two of the TSU's seven councilor candidates for Kaohsiung did get elected. One of them is Yeh Chin-ling (葉津鈴), who also enjoyed a lot of publicity because she hosts a radio program on a local radio station which she also owns.
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