Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) New Taipei City candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜) yesterday defeated the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) by a large margin, with Su conceeding his loss at about 8pm and calling on the DPP to reflect on the “fiasco.”
Hou’s victory means that the KMT will continue to govern the city — the municipality with the largest population in the nation — as it has since then-KMT candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) won in 2010.
Chu won re-election in 2014 by narrowly beating his DPP opponent ,Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), by 50.06 percent of the votes to 48.78 percent.
Photo: CNA
Su conceded defeat before the final results were confirmed, having been behind Hou since results began coming in at 4pm.
“The DPP administration should deeply reflect on this fiasco, redress its wrongs and strive to win back people’s confidence,” Su said at his campaign headquarters in Banciao District (板橋), as he expressed his gratitude and apologies to supporters.
Hou’s supporters were optimistic about the outcome, watching and cheering televised results for other KMT candidates as they waited to hear the final results.
Photo: CNA
Hou arrived at his Banciao headquarters about 9:20pm, where supporters waved national flags and set off firecrackers.
He would become a mayor “on the frontline” striving for a better future for the city, Hou said, adding that he would consider keeping any of Su’s programs that had proved beneficial for residents.
“Public opinions are changing like a strong current,” Hou said, adding that he would handle his future responsibilities conscientiously.
Arriving before Hou, Chu promised that he would help Hou learn his mayoral duties in the shortest amount of time possible.
Hou was New Taipei City deputy mayor from December 2010 before he resigned on Feb. 28 to run in the mayoral race.
Su was commissioner of then-Taipei County from 1997 to 2004, before resigning to take up the post of Presidential Office secretary-general, where he served until February 2005; he then served as premier from January 2006 to May 2007.
The construction project planned for the coal-fired Shenao Power Plant (深澳電廠) in Rueifang District (瑞芳) became a contentious topic between Hou and Su during the campaign until it lost steam when Premier William Lai (賴清德) decided early last month to scrap the project.
Su questioned Hou’s integrity, highlighting a controversy around Hou’s real-estate holdings and his role in arresting independence activist Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) in 1989 when he was crime prevention division chief at the Taipei City Police Department.
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