New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), seen as a legitimate presidential hopeful, has decided to forgo a run at the presidency in 2016 after announcing on Tuesday that he would run for a second term as mayor and complete his second term if re-elected. Political watchers said that Chu may have not had much choice in the matter because of the politics involved in nationwide elections to be held in November.
The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) chances in two of its traditional strongholds in northern Taiwan — Taoyuan County and Keelung — have taken a hit because of corruption scandals, and it could face a challenge in Taipei, recent polls suggest.
Chu’s decision to stay in New Taipei City rather than leave the county to another candidate to prepare a presidential bid was widely seen as a favorable and perhaps essential move for his party, KMT lawmakers said.
KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池), who represents New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), said Chu’s decision should stabilize support in the November election for KMT candidates in Taipei, Keelung and Taoyuan, which border New Taipei City.
Chu will be able to galvanize support in the region, Lin said.
KMT Legislator Chiang Huei-chen’s (江惠貞), who also represents a New Taipei City district, described Chu’s re-election announcement as an anchor that will stabilize the party’s drift.
“It’s inspiring,” she said, especially when support for the KMT’s mayoral candidate in Taipei, Sean Lien (連勝文), is sagging, and corruption cases have hit KMT administrations in Keelung and Taoyuan.
“Chu is now the only one [in the KMT] capable of shouldering such a heavy duty. His administration’s performance is so far the best and most effective among all local politicians,” Chiang said.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Alex Fei (費鴻泰) and Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), who represent Taipei, had similar views, saying separately that Chu’s run for re-election could solidify votes for the KMT in the Taipei mayoral race.
Other officials familiar with the matter said that Chu had wanted his deputy Hou You-yi (侯友宜) to run for mayor in New Taipei City, so that Chu could concentrate on the presidential election in 2016.
However, the situation changed in the past month, when then-deputy chief of Taoyuan County, Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文) and Keelung City Council Speaker Huang Ching-tai (黃景泰) were accused of taking bribes.
Rank-and-file KMT members in New Taipei City began voicing strong opposition to the idea of supporting a run by Hou, who they said has good relations with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the lawmakers added.
They feared that the KMT could lose in both Taipei and New Taipei City, and even in other northern Taiwan cities and counties that have been KMT strongholds, leaving Chu little choice but to seek re-election to help the KMT safeguard its support base, the sources said.
A former vice premier and two-term Taoyuan county commissioner, Chu was last month named one of the seven vice chairmen of the KMT. He became the mayor of Taiwan’s most populous city — home to nearly 4 million people — in 2010.
Former DPP lawmaker and political commentator Julian Kuo (郭正亮) tagged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as the biggest beneficiary of Chu’s decision, and described DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), as an “accidental beneficiary.”
In the online publication Formosa, Kuo said Ma, who doubles as KMT chairman, could expect wins in the November elections in northern Taiwan, where support for his party has shown signs of waning, thanks to Chu’s high popularity and his decision to seek re-election.
As for Tsai, who will likely be the DPP’s presidential candidate in 2016, Kuo said Chu was considered to be the only person who could compete with Tsai in the election.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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