Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) serving as mayor is acceptable, but letting him run for president would be “too much.”
Ko was responding to media queries about remarks by Han’s wife, Lee Chia-fen (李佳芬), who said in a magazine interview published yesterday that given a chance to choose again, she would not have let Han run for mayor.
Asked about Lee’s remarks, Ko said: “Running for Kaohsiung mayor is alright, but running for president is too much.”
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“People should be careful about getting carried away, which is something I often remind myself,” Ko added.
Han’s biggest challenge now is that he is “burning the candle at both ends,” as it is more difficult to govern Kaohsiung, which is deep in debt and had been governed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for many years, Ko said.
Han would need at least two years to become familiar with his duties, he added.
“It takes a certain amount of training to govern a city,” Ko said. “There are only 24 hours in a day, so it is difficult to learn how to govern a city and a nation at the same time.”
Ko said that before he ran for Taipei mayor in 2014, it took him almost a year to learn about the duties of all city departments, so he believes it would be much more difficult to learn how to lead the central government.
In other news, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) on Tuesday reported that Ko met several corporate leaders for a dinner at a five-star hotel on Monday night, sparking questions about his claims about being open and transparent.
Ko denied that the dinner was a gathering to win support for the Jan. 11 elections, adding that the business leaders meet regularly and he was only invited as a “friend.”
Taipei City Government spokesman Tom Chou (周台竹) said that Ko values exchanging opinions with private enterprises to improve municipal administration, adding that the report was confusing and misleading.
A few Taipei city councilors across party lines said that Ko appears to have double standards on transparency.
New Power Party Chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said that it was ironic that Ko, who is likely cooperating with Hon Hai Precision Industry founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) and has meals with corporate leaders, would name his party the “Taiwan People’s Party.”
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