Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) administration plans to reshuffle its ranks to fend off a campaign to recall him, the Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine reported on Tuesday.
The restructuring began before the Lunar New Year holiday, with Cheng Chao-hsin (鄭照新), special assistant to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Jiang (江啟臣), joining as director-general of the Kaohsiung Information Bureau, while former KMT legislator Lin Li-chan (林麗蟬) was invited to serve as an adviser to the city government, the report said.
Anne Wang (王淺秋) and Peter Pan (潘恒旭), who previously headed the Information Bureau and the Tourism Bureau respectively, would not return to the team, the report said, adding that the administration hopes to reshape its image.
Photo: Hsu Li-chuen, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, Han intends to maintain a low profile during the recall campaign by focusing on governance and avoiding speaking about politics, the report said.
Han’s team intends to carefully manage his public comments to prevent perpetuating his image as a caobao (草包, “country bumpkin”), the magazine cited an aide to the city government as saying.
Recently, Han’s presence in the media has been related to prevention of the 2019 novel coronavirus, the report said.
The mayor has no intention of running in the KMT’s chairperson by-election, and does not want someone to run on his behalf, the report said, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter.
Cheng said in the report that the city government’s most pressing matter is preventing an outbreak of the coronavirus and governing the city, adding that he believes Kaohsiung residents would “make a wise decision in the end,” referring to the recall efforts.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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