Opposition legislative candidates for Taipei’s seventh electoral district should run on the same ticket based on polling results, independent candidate Yang Shih-chiu (楊實秋) said yesterday.
Yang, a former Taipei City councilor, issued a statement on Tuesday announcing his candidacy. In it he thanked the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for evicting him last month, adding that the party had opened up “boundless vistas” for him to stand for election without the “burden” of being associated with the party.
Yang was expelled after he publicly criticized the KMT and called for party reform after losing his city council seat in last year’s local elections.
Yang’s candidacy stands to complicate “third force” electoral efforts in the seventh district, for which the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has said that it does not plan to field a candidate.
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has nominated gay rights activist Lu Hsin-chieh (呂欣潔) to stand in the district, with a number of other small parties considering candidacies.
Yang said there had to be integration because otherwise there would be no chance of defeating the district’s incumbent lawmaker, KMT legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰).
“If we split votes, this campaign will be over before it’s even started,” Yang said. “It will be impossible to dislodge the incumbent if the vote is divided because Xinyi District (信義) is one of the safest nationally for the KMT.”
The seventh electoral district comprises of Taipei’s Xinyi along with the southern section of Songshan District (松山).
Yang said the high number of military dependents’ villages that used to be in the electoral district had left a strongly “pan-blue” electorate.
Fai’s margin in the previous two legislative elections was the strongest nationally for the KMT, he said, adding that during the last election, the district was the only one for which the DPP did not nominate a candidate, instead recommending a candidate from the Green Party Taiwan.
Yang said candidates should integrate based on poll results, which he said showed that he was nearly tied with Fai in a head-to-head contest, but that fell more than 10 percentage points behind Lai when voters were asked to choose from a list of all candidates.
The integration should be based on polls taken in two months time to allow all the candidates adequate time to campaign, he said.
However, Lu ruled out running with Yang, citing incompatible political stances.
“Based on his past stances and ideology, Yang is closer to Fai — I’d recommend that the two of them consider running together,” Lu said.
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