Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) and Jennifer Lu (呂欣潔), members of a “third force” political party — meaning they are not part of the pan-green or pan-blue camps — have thrown their hats in the ring for year-end Taipei city councilor election, with both saying they are open to the idea of teaming up with other third-force party candidates to minimize the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) hold on Taipei.
Despite being defeated in 2016’s legislative elections, when they ran for seats in Taipei, both have remained active in public affairs, with Miao being a political columnist for Chinese-language newspaper the Apple Daily and a talk show host and political commentator on Yahoo TV, and Lu as a former director at Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Su Chia-hui’s (蘇巧慧) office and the convener for the same-sex union advocacy group Marriage Equality General Platform.
For the nine-in-one elections on Nov. 24, Miao and Lu have been nominated by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) — a center-left political party founded by veteran social campaigners after the 2014 Sunflower movement — to run for city councilor candidates in Taipei’s Daan (大安)-Wenshan (文山) and Songshan (松山)-Xinyi (信義) constituencies respectively.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Daan-Wenshan is widely viewed as a KMT stronghold, with the pan-blue camp occupying eight out of 12 city councilor seats in the constituency before the death of then-Taipei city councilor Lee Hsin (李新) last year.
In Songshan-Xinyi, the KMT has five out of 10 seats, while the DPP has four and the Republican Party has one.
The distribution of seats in both constituencies suggest that Miao and Lu, as members of a nascent political party, face an uphill battle in their bid to effect changes in the constituencies’ political landscape.
However, they are clearly undaunted and in fighting spirits.
“Having a high visibility is what matters most, whether you are nominated by a big political party or a small one,” Miao said.
Over the years since running in the 2016 poll, she has remained active in promoting her ideals on issues relating to people’s everyday life and advocating Taiwan’s right to achieve self-determination, she said.
“The SDP is a pro-Taiwanese independence party with quintessential Taiwanese values at its core,” she said.
She said she hoped to gain support from borderline pan-blue camp supporters and undecided voters.
Commenting on fellow Daan-Wenshan city councilor contender Lin Ying-meng (林穎孟), spokeswoman for the New Power Party (NPP) — another third-force party founded by civil campaigners associated with the Sunflower movement — Miao said she does not see her relationship with Lin as competitive, but rather cooperative.
“As the city council elections take the form of plurality-at-large voting, the third political force should find strength in unity,” she said. “My aim is to wipe out the KMT and supervise the ruling party.”
If elected, Miao said she would focus on supervising Taipei’s education and public housing policies.
She would emphasize improving textbook materials on gender equality and homosexuality, which are often vilified by conservative parents’ groups, which have “very negative” effects on teenagers who have just begun to explore their sexuality, Miao said.
She would support building more public housing on the condition that safeguards are introduced, because if public housing complexes are not carefully planned, the large number of residents moving into Daan and Wenshan districts could affect homeowners’ quality of life, Miao added.
Lu said that a plurality-at-large election is an ideal platform for candidates with clearly defined values and goals, because it helps them carve out their niches, making them more recognizable.
Taiwan’s politics has long been lacking in foresight, she said.
“I believe that Taipei residents want someone who can do the right things to make Taiwan better, not someone who is fixated on giving them siaocyuesing (小確幸, “small happiness”), which often involve quid pro quo agreements,” Lu said.
The culture of speaking up for minorities has yet to be cultivated in politics, a problem that would likely be ameliorated as more young people participate in politics, she added.
If elected, she would focus on Taipei’s policy on long-term care services, ensure that the municipal government duly carries out labor inspections, improve the learning environment for special needs students by mainstreaming them into regular classrooms, and push policies that would make Taipei a “friendlier” place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning people, Lu said.
Asked about her fellow third-force candidate, former NPP spokesman Wu Cheng (吳崢), who has been tapped by the NPP to run in Songshan-Xinyi, Lu also said her relationship with Wu does not have to be competitive.
It would probably be better if the two of them could work together to minimize the KMT’s representation in the deep-blue constituency, Lu said.
Political commentator Yao Li-ming (姚立明) said he does not believe that Taipei is a KMT stronghold in terms of the city council elections, as there is a large proportion of swing voters.
Members of the third force have better prospects of winning in city council elections than they do in legislative elections, which often boil down to a one-on-one competition between two candidates in a constituency, he said.
For example, Miao, with her experience of fighting in a legislative election and her “high campaigning energy,” has very good chances, Yao said.
The KMT’s and the DPP’s nominations will be a noteworthy factor, as the more candidates they nominate in a constituency, the more votes will be divided up, and the better the chances of the third force will be, he said.
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