PFP and KMT to field one candidate in Nantou County

The People First Party (PFP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will work together to promote a single candidate for Nantou County commissioner this year, the PFP's hopeful for the post said yesterday.

The PFP's Nantou County commissioner nominee, PFP Legislative Caucus Whip Chen Chih-pin (陳志彬) said that he and the KMT's candidate for Nantou County, current Nantou City Mayor Lee Chao-ching (李朝卿), had agreed to let the polls decide which should be selected as both parties' candidate for the region.

Survey

With a number of party old guard serving as witnesses, Chen said that he had met with Lee on Saturday and agreed to hire a survey company to run polls in Nantou County next month, and have the winner become the pan-blue camp's candidate for the area.

The comments from Chen yesterday came as a surprise, given recent remarks from PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) identifying Nantou County as one place where the party will not back down in the face of potentially stronger KMT candidates.

In comments last week, Soong said that while he acknowledges that the PFP and KMT should cooperate in the year-end elections given their overlapping support bases, the PFP will not give way in regions it feels confident of its candidates' success, such as Nantou County and Keelung City.

Done deal

"Both sides already have an agreement, that whoever loses [in the polls] will back out of the race and support the other pan-blue candidate," Chen said, adding that he is confident of his personal success, given that he is better known.

When reporting the agreement to PFP Secretary-General Chin Chin-sheng (秦金生) on Saturday, Chen said Chin warned him to be careful of being deceived by the KMT.

In reaction however, Chen said he did not think that the KMT would manipulate the polls.