Both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have set central Taiwan as the key battleground in the approaching nine-in-one elections on Nov. 29.
With that in mind, some of the DPP’s candidates in the region, including Greater Taichung mayoral candidate Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), Changhua County commissioner candidate Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷) and Nantou County commissioner candidate Lee Wen-chung (李文忠), have seen their campaigns revolving around themes of regional governance and integrated construction.
In addition to attending joint campaign events, the trio have also appeared in a campaign advertisement promoting their plan to build a “common living circle” linking the three administrative regions.
Their cooperation has proven to be effective, putting further pressure on their KMT rivals, a high-ranking DPP member said, citing the candidates’ strong performances in recent opinion polls.
However, the DPP’s latest analysis shows that while Wei leads his main opponent, the KMT’s Lin Tsang-min (林滄敏), in polls, organization and coordination are the latter’s strong suit and that former Taiwan Solidarity Union lawmaker Huang Wen-ling’s (黃文玲) running for Changhua County commissioner could impede Wei’s attempts to draw all the support he can get from the pan-green camp.
As for the Yunlin County race, the DPP’s Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) has lost his lead in opinion polls and now has nearly the same level of support as his KMT rival, Chang Li-shan (張麗善).
The same trend has also been observed in the outlying county of Penghu, where the DPP’s Chen Kuang-fu (陳光復) has also lost the edge over his KMT opponent, Su Kun-hsiung (蘇崑雄), because of the latter’s effective strategic planning.
According to a source with close ties to the higher echelons of the DPP, who requested anonymity, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) came up with the concept of “regional governance” in her Platform for the Coming Decade when she was vying for the presidency in 2012.
“Tsai meant for the concept to address the problems of unequal distribution of government resources as a result of the sudden upgrade of five administrative regions into special municipalities in 2010, as well as the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor,” the source said.
A DPP campaign staffer said the party headquarters proposed the regional governance concept to Lin Chia-lung, Wei and Lee Wen-chung in the latter half of this year and that the trio readily accepted the idea.
“Now that the concept has proven to be a workable strategy, the party has recommended its Yunlin County commissioner candidate Lee Chin-yung, Chiayi City mayor candidate Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) and Chiayi County commissioner candidate Helen Chang (張花冠) to follow suit,” the staff member said.
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