The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday vowed to become the nation’s largest party at the launch of its nationwide motorcade campaign for the Jan. 11 legislative elections.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who is also TPP chairman, told a news conference at the Taiwan New Cultural Movement Memorial Museum in Taipei that the party would not settle for being the third-largest, but would set its sights on becoming the largest party that shapes Taiwan’s politics.
Holding an event at the museum was inspiring, as the museum documents the desire of Taiwanese in the 1920s and 1930s to pursue democracy and freedom, and keep up with the world’s most advanced civilizations, he said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The New Cultural Movement, whose credo was to embrace progressive values, was a manifestation of Taiwanese desire to change the “status quo,” he said.
“Change starts with the capital and culture” was his campaign slogan for the 2014 Taipei mayoral election, which was the first campaign in Taiwan’s history that appealed to changing the nation’s culture, Ko said, adding that to him, elections and ruling a nation are both social movements aimed at reforming political culture.
The TPP would unite people to move the nation forward, giving people a new option other than the pan-green and pan-blue camps, he said.
Although Taiwanese democracy has had its achievements over the past three decades, after three transitions of political power the nation has been beleaguered with the question of “unification or independence,” and the government rules with ideologies, which has stalled and hindered the nation, Ko said.
Someone once asked him what his principle of governance was, to which he replied: “Do the right thing, and do it conscientiously; do not do the wrong things,” Ko said, adding that this, coupled with persistence, practicality, science and statistics, would move the nation forward.
Ultimately, politics is about executive power, and politicians not only need to identify problems and troublemakers, they also need to be able to solve issues, he said.
Next year would mark the TPP’s first battle for legislative seats, a battle for which the party would fight by touting its values of governance and financial discipline, as well as an open and transparent government, he added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is aware that Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong has weakened any possible sentiment for a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan, and has instructed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) to develop new ways of defining cross-strait relations, Japanese news magazine Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday. A former professor of international politics at Fu Dan University, Wang is expected to develop a dialogue that could serve as the foundation for cross-strait unification, and Xi plans to use the framework to support a fourth term as president, Nikkei Asia quoted an anonymous source
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