Aided by musical performances and TV personalities, the three mayoral candidates for Greater Kaohsiung held their final rallies last night.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) began her -carnival-style rally amid an ocean of campaign flags with a series of old Taiwanese melodies as thousands of supporters filled the square in front of Chen’s campaign headquarters.
Responding to a call by former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to treat the election as an opportunity to express to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his administration public dissatisfaction with the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) performance and China-leaning policies, the crowd yelled “Yeah!” and “Elect Chen Chu.”
The fervor reached a climax when former premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) and former vice premier Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) called on Chen’s supporters to elect a hardworking mayoral candidate who has core values.
An 83-year-old supporter showed his enthusiasm by shouting “She will win! She will win!” while other supporters blew their horns.
Meanwhile, several blocks away from Chen’s headquarters, Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興), who is running as an independent, opened his election-eve rally with a band performance.
Many participants in the rally waved a giant national flag of the Republic of China (ROC) while others cheered, yelling “Elect Yang Chiu-hsing!”
The highlight came when celebrities, led by Taiwanese TV series star Chin Yang (秦楊), held up a banner that read “We Support Yang’s [mayoral bid] to get justice for Huang Chun-ying [黃俊英].”
Huang Chun-ying was defeated by Chen by a small margin of 1,114 votes in the Kaohsiung mayoral election in 2006.
At the KMT’s rally for Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) in northern Kaohsiung, Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said they were confident Huang Chao-shun would win the race as long as voters concentrated their votes on her.
Thousands of KMT supporters cheered while holding small ROC flags as KMT heavyweights stood beside Huang Chao-shun in support of her call for change in Kaohsiung.
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