The nation’s two major political parties are stepping up their efforts to woo the support of young people in the run-up to the presidential election on Jan. 11 next year.
For the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), people familiar with the matter said that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) re-election campaign aims to boost her support among young voters by promoting her platform on Dcard, an online forum popular among young people.
Recent polls show that support for Tsai among young people by far exceeded that for Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who has been officially nominated as the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, they said.
Photo: CNA
On the Internet, Han is often mocked by young people for rarely delivering on his promises and abandoning his responsibilities as mayor, they added.
While young people tend to dislike politicians who are bureaucratic or pretend to be “for the people,” Tsai has maintained a positive and fresh image, DPP sources said.
That Tsai is not afraid to make a stand on issues related to Taiwan’s sovereignty is especially appealing to young voters, the sources said, adding that Tsai would continue to promote her platform in the same spirit to secure their support.
Photo: Ko Yu-hao, Taipei Times
To better reach young people, Tsai’s campaign team has been expanding its outreach on new media, sources said, citing as an example Tsai recent opening of a Dcard account so that she can directly communicate with young people online.
Unlike users of Facebook and Line, those on Dcard tend to be even younger voters in their 20s.
Campaign materials distributed on new media would be designed based on the style of the social media and promote Tsai’s policy achievements in an accessible and non-bureaucratic manner, the sources said.
Asked if independent Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) could cause Tsai to lose young supporters if he joined the presidential race, the sources said that it is unnecessary to make a distinction between “Ko fans” and “Tsai fans,” adding that as young voters value good policies, Tsai would aim to convince them by offering better policy plans.
Having learned their lesson from last year’s experience, when rumors and speculation proliferated in the run-up to the nine-in-one elections, they said the DPP would boost its response mechanism to false information.
The party must convince its supporters, through online tools and organized efforts, that the DPP is the only party that can effectively protect Taiwan against Chinese infiltration, the sources said.
In contrast, since taking office, Han has done a terrible job running Kaohsiung, they said
While no young voter would trust Han to fulfill his platform, a number of pro-China media outlets have been consistently promoting the mayor, a DPP member said.
The media outlets are expected to continue promoting Han, but hopefully voters would be capable of making the right decision on election day, the member added.
Meanwhile, KMT Organizational Development Committee director Lee Che-hua (李哲華) said his party is ready to fight false accusations online in its campaign for the presidency next year.
He accused DPP supporters of a long-term campaign to smear Han online.
“Wherever the attack comes from is where [the KMT] will strike back,” he said.
The KMT will refute false accusations immediately and correct long-term misconceptions, Lee said, adding that although it would not be able to change younger voters’ impressions about Han immediately, it would try.
The main objective is to propose economic policies that would allow young voters to see the vision the KMT and Han have to offer, he said.
The KMT has divided its campaign efforts for the presidential election into three main categories: campaigning centered on the candidate himself, campaigning by the candidate’s fans and campaigning led by the party, he said.
The three will cooperate with Han’s proposal to establish his campaign headquarters in Kaohsiung, and complement each other, he said.
Lee said that campaigning would focus on three targets: strengthening the party’s voter base and existing organization; regaining votes it has lost from independent and young voters; and changing the attitude of people who oppose the KMT and preventing anti-KMT voices from growing.
The party will ask its 15 mayors and county commissioners to recuse themselves from chairing the election commissions of their respective jurisdictions and instead chair the local joint campaign offices of Han and the party’s legislative nominees, he said.
During Han’s mayoral campaign, many young people were touched by his calls for those working in Taipei to return to their hometown to vote, a member of the KMT’s campaign staff working on youth relations said on Sunday.
However, Han has “scared away” young people who once had high hopes for him because while calling on young people to return to their hometown, as he is running for president and is unable to fulfill the promise he made to Kaohsiung in the near term, said the source, who declined to be named, adding that young people feel cheated.
Han’s approval rating among young voters is “tragic,” sources said.
The image of Han as a caobao (草包, “country bumpkin”) — a nickname given by Han’s critics — “is deeply ingrained in the minds of young people,” and smearing Han has perhaps already become a trend online, they said.
A pragmatic counterapproach would be to let Han speak to young people face-to-face and directly face the challenge, allowing people to better understand him instead of rejecting him because of their assumptions about him, they said.
However, the effect of this approach might be limited, they added.
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