Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he would leave it until tomorrow “to worry about” whether to run in the presidential election, together with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), one of the contenders in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential primary.
The KMT is to announce the opinion poll results of its presidential primary tomorrow.
As Gou last week said he would not rule out cooperating with Ko, speculation has been mounting whether he might leave the party if he does lead the polling results and run for president as an independent with Ko.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Asked yesterday whether cooperation was possible, Ko said that it would depend on what it entailed, but that Guo had not yet approached him personally.
Asked if he would accept if Gou asked him to be his running mate in the presidential election, Ko said: “I think it would not be too late to start worrying about it on Monday. I have recently been thinking about a lot of issues, including what path Taiwan should follow from here.”
Also asked if he would accept being the premier if asked, Ko said that he would think about it, but added that he was “just fine” with being the Taipei mayor for now.
Ko said he does not want to say too much about the election right now, to avoid being blamed for interfering with the KMT presidential primary.
On Friday, Ko was asked about the possibility of cooperating with the Democratic Progressive Party or the KMT, as it is a widely held view that he intends to run in next year’s presidential election.
“I try not to view anyone as the enemy, so I often say that there are many ways of cooperating and that does not mean we have to cooperate on everything. This is what I mean by being free,” Ko said.
When asked if he might even cooperate with the DPP again, he said: “Anything is possible.”
He does not have any problems with the DPP, he added.
He does not want to label all members the same — tarring them with the same brush — as Pingtung County Commissioner Pan Men-an (潘孟安) was friendly to him when he visited Pingtung, Ko said, adding that he himself is nice to everyone.
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