Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he has not received word from the New Power Party (NPP) about possible cooperation with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), of which he is chairman, but added that his ideas for adjusting the housing tax rate are similar to those of the NPP.
Reporters had asked Ko about NPP Chairman Hsu Yung-ming’s (徐永明) remark on Saturday that there is room for cooperation between the NPP and the TPP.
Hsu added he hoped Ko would clarify his stance on adjusting the house tax.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The NPP insists on the value of monitoring the government rationally and if third-force parties could join forces, they would not lose to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 11, NPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said.
Ko, who founded the TPP in August, yesterday said he has not heard from the NPP about possible cooperation.
Whether the two parties can cooperate depends on the issues they intend to work on together and how they plan to cooperate, Ko said.
The NPP’s ideas on housing justice and the house tax rate are similar to those of the TPP, he said, adding that the Taipei City Government would send a proposal to the Taipei City Council about house tax adjustments, but the rate is still being discussed.
While some say that the relationship between the so-called “white force” — led by Ko — and the pan-green camp has broken up, he still has many friends in the pan-green camp, Ko said, adding that the world cannot simply be divided into two.
Cooperation is a good thing, but it depends on issues to cooperate on, he added.
Asked about DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan’s (林飛帆) remark on Friday that “we do not believe in the pan-blue camp, the light-blue camp, or the white camp with touches of red,” Ko said he believes that 97 percent of Taiwanese constitute the “Taiwanese camp,” which views the nation’s sovereignty and rights as its first priority.
Lin’s remark is a typical example of labeling others and manipulating the “sense of the nation’s impending doom” (亡國感), which is a frequently used election strategy to manipulate the ideologies of pro-unification and pro-independence camps, Ko said.
Lin yesterday denied the DPP engaged in manipulation and said that people have such feelings because some politicians have an ambiguous attitude toward cross-strait ties, leading to concerns about the nation’s future.
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