Former Taitung County commissioner Justin Huang (黃健庭) was to be Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) running mate before the tycoon decided to forgo a presidential bid last week, Global Views Monthly said yesterday.
In an interview published by the Chinese-language magazine yesterday, Huang said that Gou asked him to be his vice presidential candidate on Aug. 26.
He said that he agreed to the proposal, believing that, as a nontraditional politician, Gou would be able to carve to a new path for Taiwan.
Photo: Chang Tsung-chiu, Taipei Times
The two met for the first time in May, when Gou visited Taitung during the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential primary, Huang said.
He said that after spending several months working closely with the tycoon, he felt that “Gou would be a great president, although not so great a candidate, especially due to Taiwan’s irrational election culture and political environment.”
Gou devoted a great amount of time to discussing national policies with academics and think tanks when his aides wanted him to spend more time canvassing, Huang said.
Despite being a successful entrepreneur, Gou was almost “a rookie in politics to a shocking degree,” he said.
For example, Huang said that when meeting people in Taitung, Gou admitted that the county would not be a priority for him if he became president.
While Gou meant to say that the development of Taitung should be delegated to the local government so the central government could focus on larger policies, “politicians usually do not say that,” Huang said.
Regarding Gou’s decision to quit the party, Huang said that the tycoon had originally planned to launch an independent presidential bid as a KMT member and let the party decide how to handle his membership.
However, Gou decided to leave the party on Sept. 12 after seeing a KMT ad published in major newspapers urging him to cooperate with the KMT’s presidential candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), Huang said.
The ad angered Gou, because some of the party heavyweights who signed it had recently told him to launch an independent presidential bid, he said.
One primary reason leading to Gou’s decision not to run was that his mother has been ill for months and he wanted to spend more time with her and his family, Huang said.
In addition, Gou believed that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would win re-election because of the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, Huang said.
Gou was also disappointed at Taiwan’s election culture, which he felt made rational discussion of policies very difficult, he added.
“[Gou] is definitely a warrior, but elections are not the right battlefield for him,” Huang said.
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