Facing speculation about whether he and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) would continue to work together for next year’s legislative elections, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that he has asked Gou to suggest suitable candidates.
Ko has often expressed his support for Gou running for president next year, but after Gou announced his decision not to run only one day before the deadline for independent candidates to register, speculation has spread regarding whether the two would cooperate on the legislative elections.
Ko, chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), on Sunday announced the party’s first eight legislative nominees.
The Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine yesterday reported that Gou plans to nominate at least four more candidates.
Ko has refused Gou’s financial support, but the tycoon has agreed to help Ko with the TPP’s legislative campaign by lending staff from his campaign team and publicly showing support for candidates from both sides, the magazine said.
The TPP has decided on the top five female nominees for its potential legislator-at-large seats, including Taipei City Government adviser Tsai Pi-ju (蔡壁如), Taipei City Government deputy spokeswoman Huang Ching-ying (黃瀞瑩) and Taipei Department of Labor Commissioner Lai Hsiang-lin (賴香伶), the magazine added.
Asked if he has reserved some legislator-at-large nominee spaces for Gou to recommend suitable candidates, Ko yesterday said that he has asked the tycoon if he wants to suggest anyone.
However, Ko refused to confirm whether the TPP plans to include Huang on its nominees list, saying that there are still two months until nominees must be announced, so it could be considered later.
Tsai, a close aide of Ko and a cofounder of the TPP, on Monday night said in a televised interview that the party had shown Gou the list of its eight nominees before announcing them on Sunday.
She cited Gou as saying that he was willing to support them and would avoid nominating candidates in the same constituencies.
Asked about speculation that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who is reportedly cooperating with Ko and Gou on next year’s elections, has approached the People First Party (PFP) about it nominating him as its presidential candidate, Ko said that he believes there is much negotiating still to do.
He said that he does not know if Wang has contacted PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), but confirmed that he has contacted Soong about meeting him after Soong returns from overseas this week.
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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