When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) nominated Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) as its mayoral candidate for Greater Kaohsiung in April, Kaohsiung resident Nayuki Wang (王貽諍) was puzzled.
“Who is she? What has she done [for Kaohsiung]?” she asked, racking her brain for any memory of the six-term legislator elected from Kaohsiung.
That was more than seven months ago.
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Even after Huang hit the campaign trail for a few months, Wang said she still had almost zero understanding of the 57-year-old candidate.
“I am completely unfamiliar with her. I didn’t even know that she was a legislator and previously was a city councilor until I saw her campaign ad on TV,” the 30-year-old said.
Wang is not the only Kaohsiung resident who is not familiar with the candidate.
Huang’s low profile in the city may become her Achilles’ heel in this month’s Greater Kaohsiung mayoral election.
However, the legislator is not new to the Kaohsiung mayoral race. In fact, Huang has been eying the mayoralty for years. She bid for the KMT’s nomination on a number of occasions against I-Shou University professor Huang Chun-ying (黃俊英) and others, but succeeded only this year.
Though Huang Chao-shun was less-well-known to many Kaohsiung residents than her rivals — Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) — she has been an active women’s rights advocate in the legislature.
She was one of the legislators who proposed an amendment to the Organic Act of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法) that would form a gender equality commission under the Executive Yuan in charge of central government-level gender-related policy.
She was one of the lawmakers who helped push through amendments to the Civil Code in 2002 that abolished the regulations allowing husbands to own and manage wives’ property.
She also joined other female legislators across party lines in pushing through an amendment to the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法) in 2005, obliging public and private organizations to establish mechanisms for reporting and punishing sexual harassment.
When she sought legislative re-election in 2008, she was recommended by the women’s group the Awakening Foundation for being “gender issue-friendly.”
Though Huang Chao-shun is the underdog against Chen and Yang, who is running as an independent candidate, Huang Chao-shun has shown a determination to win voter support and stand out in the mayoral race.
TV footage shot on Sept. 27 showed Huang Chao-shun inspecting the dredging work on a river in Nanzih (楠梓), which was seriously flooded because of hours of torrential rain brought by Typhoon Fanapi on Sept. 19, even though she was in a cast and wheelchair because of a broken ankle.
After years of working in the legislature for women’s rights, Huang Chao-shun has earned herself a nickname — “the legislature’s Iron Woman” (國會鐵娘子).
Huang Chao-shun’s daughter, Chen Ching-hui (陳菁徽), once called her mother an “iron carnation” when describing how tough her mother is.
“When I was little, my mother seldom came to see me. Sometimes I cried when I thought of her, but my mother didn’t allow me to cry,” Chen Ching-hui said. “She said only weaklings cry. Maybe she is right, because I seldom see her cry.”
Our series of profiles of the candidates in the Nov. 27 special municipality elections continues tomorrow with the Democratic Progressive Party mayoral candidate for Greater Kaohsiung, Chen Chu (陳菊)
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