Taipei City Councilor Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said he would resign from the council next week to seek his party’s nomination to run for mayor of Taoyuan, demonstrating his confidence in being selected by his party.
Lo, who has chosen to resign on Monday, said that the move was historic, as no elected official in Taiwan has resigned a position before winning a party’s nomination to run for another elected post.
Cheng Wen-tsan of the Democratic Progressive Party has been mayor of Taoyuan since 2014, when Taoyuan city and county were merged into a special municipality. Before that, Taoyuan was led by John Wu (吳志揚) of the KMT from 2009 to 2014 and KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) from 2001 to 2009.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Elected to the Taipei City Council in 2018, the 52-year-old Lo represents the city’s Wenshan (文山) and Daan (大安) districts. He served as Presidential Office spokesman for two years during former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) second term.
Lo is reportedly lagging behind other KMT mayoral hopefuls in party polling, but the KMT leadership is said to be willing to back whichever candidate has the best chance of winning.
Lu Yu-ling (呂玉玲), a third-term KMT legislator hailing from Taoyuan, has declared her interest in the nomination, while Legislator Lu Ming-che (魯明哲) is said to be the party front-runner for the nomination.
In February, the KMT said it would select candidates for the elections in November instead of holding primaries.
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