The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has asked its 15 mayors and county commissioners to head the campaign offices for Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) presidential campaign in their cities or counties, but some do not appear eager to accept the task.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) on Saturday said he was not currently considering acting as the head of the local Han campaign office, while Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) yesterday shied away from questions about her heading the Taichung office.
Governing the city was his “biggest priority” at the moment, so he was not considering other issues, Hou said, even after KMT Nantou County Commissioner Lin Ming-chen (林明溱) on Saturday urged him to “look at the bigger picture.”
Photo: CNA
He reiterated that position yesterday.
Lu told reporters that she would “speak about it later.”
Hou is different from traditional male KMT members in that he makes his judgements based on what is right and wrong, rather than party affiliation, an anonymous source said.
Hou has been criticized for being “blue on the outside and green on the inside,” but he has remained the same by not emphasizing his party affiliation and repeatedly condemning the nation’s political blue-green divide, the source said.
For the Nov. 24 nine-in-one elections last year, the KMT did not give Hou “any monetary support,” and the appearance of Hou, Han and Lu on the same stage during rallies had just been a campaign strategy, a second source said.
The pan-blue camp played a “limited” role in Hou’s victory last year over then-Democratic Progressive Party candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), and Hou won based on his personal qualities and image as a “non-blue, non-green” candidate, they said.
Additional reporting by Chang Ching-ya and Lai Hsiao-tung
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