Taipei’s two leading mayoral candidates will hold large-scale campaign rallies tomorrow in a final attempt to boost support in Saturday’s polls, with each camp planning to attract tens of thousands of supporters.
The election-eve campaign for Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will be held at Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as the KMT chairman, will lead top party officials and legislators to campaign for the mayor at the event, which will run from 7pm to 10pm.
PHOTO: LU CHUN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
ACHIEVEMENTS
Titled “A Fair Judgment for the Man of Action,” the party will tout Hau’s municipal achievements in the past four years, while urging voters to come out and vote on Saturday to ensure a high turnout, Hau’s campaign spokesman Fan Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) said.
Fan Chiang said the KMT hoped to attract at least 50,000 supporters for the night. Ma and Hau plan to walk through the crowd and appear on stage at about 9:20pm.
The campaign rally for DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), on the other hand, will be held at the corner of Beiping E Road and Shaoxing N Street from 7pm to 10pm.
Titled “100,000 Dreams and Feelings,” the party aims to attract 100,000 city residents who dream of a better Taipei.
Su’s campaign spokesman, Lee Hou-ching (李厚慶), said that except for former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), they would not invite other DPP heavyweights to attend the campaign event.
“Taipei residents are the masters in this election campaign, and they will be the focus of the event,” he said.
The rally will begin with a video clip summarizing Su’s campaign from the announcement of his mayoral bid in March and ending with Su and participants at the rally singing the campaign theme song, Change, Lee said.
SINBEI
In Sinbei City, both KMT and DPP candidates are also expected to hold rallies deep into the night in a last-ditch effort to attract voter support the next morning.
DPP Chairperson and mayoral candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will concentrate on securing votes in the populous Sanchong (三重) and Banciao (板橋) cities, holding two large election-eve rallies there. Organizers said they expected more than 10,000 supporters to attend each event.
“We hope that we can still reach more and more voters right until the last minute. This will be our final effort,” Tsai said.
Throughout the day, she is also expected to lead large motorcades through other areas of Taipei County, which will be renamed Sinbei City after it is upgraded next month.
KMT mayoral candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) will also hold a large election-eve rally in Banciao and another in Sinjhuang (新莊), an area that has traditionally voted for pan-blue candidates.
His campaign office is also expected to call on voters to head to the polls on Saturday through telephone calls and personal appeals by the candidate.
“No one can say for sure which candidate will run in which area,” Chu said. “It’s an overall effort.”
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