The New Power Party (NPP) plans to announce a second wave of legislative district candidates next month, party-building taskforce interim “captain” Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said.
The party has already announced six district candidates, with a total of 10 candidates required for it to be eligible for at-large legislative seats.
Huang said that there are two districts in which the NPP and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have both nominated candidates, including New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) and Hsinchu. He said the NPP will respect each individual candidate’s choice of how to “harmonize” with the DPP.
The NPP is inclined to nominate four more candidates in districts uncontested by the DPP, Huang said, adding that their main objective is to ensure that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) do not achieve a majority in the legislature.
He said there have been many independent candidates who have contacted the NPP to express interest in the second wave of nominations.
When asked whether he would take campaign promotional pictures with DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Huang said that he would first place a priority on policy interaction between the two parties. Because of his position as interim head of the taskforce, he should “wait a bit” as a matter of “tempo,” he said.
Chthonic frontman Freddy Lim (林昶佐), the NPP’s candidate for Taipei’s Zhongzheng/Wanhua (中正/萬華) district, has become the party’s second candidate to take pictures with Tsai for use in campaign promotional materials.
The DPP has “made way” for the musician’s candidacy by abstaining from nominating a competing candidate to stand in the district.
Lim said that DPP city councilors Chou Wei-you (周威佑) and Liu Yao-jen (劉耀仁) have allowed him to place campaign flags at their local offices, with Liu also lending him a campaign truck and election billboards, he said.
He added that he had “stayed in touch” with the district’s other two DPP city councilors, Yan Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) and Tung Chung-yan (童仲彥).
Both sides hoped to have positive interactions similar to that between the DPP and independent Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Lim said.
He said there were plans to put on large-scale grassroots forums along with smaller scale receptions with lower levels of the DPP, with the objective of solidifying the party’s hold on traditional DPP voters even as it broadens its share of swing voters.
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