Legislative Elections: Legislative hopeful departs from family's KMT roots

Some politicians are made, others are born. Looking at the recent actions of first-time legislative hopeful and son of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Kao Yu-jen (高育仁), Supo Kao (高思博), it becomes clear that the 37-year old People First Party (PFP) candidate in Tainan City has politics in his blood.

From Kao's involvement in a debate in the legislature over an intellectual property rights law last Tuesday; his co-hosting of an anti-arms budget rally with the Democratic Action Alliance last month, to his trip to the local Tainan KMT headquarters earlier this month to call for a cross-party vote allocation strategy, the actions of the Shih Hsin University professor have put him in the spotlight.

Besides his tendency to act out on his beliefs, Kao's political ambitions are also worthy of note because of his party leanings. Despite the fact that his father is an old guard KMT politician, his wife Jessica Chou (周韻采) is Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) top lieutenant and his brother-in-law happens to be Chu Li-lun (朱立倫), a KMT-affiliated county commissioner in Taoyuan, Kao is running as the PFP's sole legislative candidate in Tainan City.

"My general political standing is pro-blue, but I feel that the blue camp needs change," Kao told the Taipei Times on Saturday.

"We need a completely new pan-blue camp with a new vision. I decided to join the PFP because I feel that the party is in a better position to revolutionize the pan-blue alliance," he said, adding that he dislikes some of the KMT's administrative practices.

Kao said that since the pan-blue camp is set to merge soon anyway, the important thing is for the parties to work together to win a maximum number of seats in the Dec. 11 legislative elections.