Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday met with nine legislative candidates as he began a bicycle trip from Taipei to Yunlin County, while denying reports that he has broken his promise to remain neutral.
Ko denied that the trip was a campaign ploy or that he was reneging on his promise to keep Taipei as an electoral “demilitarized zone” between the pan-green and pan-blue camps.
“I am just going to ride my bicycle. They [legislative candidates] are welcome to join me if they want to,” he said, before adding: “In principle, I have not engaged in any ideological conflicts.”
Photo: CNA
“For example, [Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Legislator] Lee Yan-hsiu (李彥秀), who is campaigning in the Nangang-Neihu (南港-內湖) district, invited me to one of her campaign events. I did not ‘say no,’” Ko said.
Lee had asked him to join her in inspecting Neihu’s congestion-prone traffic conditions and he would accept her invitation, Ko said.
“She is a city councilor, so as a mayor, I have to,” he said.
He also said that he would seek to explore the possibility of transforming Taipei into a “rainbow zone” that can accommodate different views from across the political spectrum.
When pressed by reporters to publicly endorse legislators and stop using other events as excuses for endorsement, Ko said that if he announced that he would campaign for legislative candidates, it would bring his work as Taipei mayor to a complete standstill.
“With so many constituencies across the nation, how could I possibly handle it?” he said.
Among the candidates Ko met yesterday were Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤), who is campaigning in Taipei’s Beitou-Shihlin (北投-士林) electoral district; the DPP’s Lu Sun-ling (呂孫綾), who is running in New Taipei City; the Green Party-Social Democratic Party (SDP) Alliance’s Wang Pao-hsuan (王寶萱), who is running in Taoyuan; DPP Legislator Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), who is seeking re-election in Hsinchu; Republic Party’s Kang Shih-ju (康世儒), who is running in Miaoli; the DPP’s Chen Wen-pin (陳文斌) in Changhua; the New Power Party’s Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) and independent candidate Chi Kuo-tung (紀國棟), who are both running in Taichung; former Yunlin County commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) of the DPP; and People First Party vice presidential candidate Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩).
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