Enoch Wu (吳怡農), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate in the Taipei legislative by-election, on Monday announced that he would hold a town hall meeting this weekend to engage with voters, while his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rival, Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), accused him of shying away from a public debate.
The by-election on Jan. 8 is to fill the Zhongshan (中山) and northern Songshan (松山) electoral seat vacated by Taipei mayor-elect Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the KMT. There are three contenders for the position: Wu; Wang, who had just been re-elected Taipei city councilor on Nov. 26; and independent candidate Hsiao He-lin (蕭赫麟).
From the start, Wu has run an atypical campaign, saying he would neither use large banners nor hold large gatherings to promote his candidacy, and would not resort to insinuations, false accusations and mudslinging.
Photo: Tien Su-hua, Taipei Times
His focus is on engaging with voters and the issues that matter most to them, he has said.
On Monday, Wang posted a video accusing Wu of making excuses to avoid a public debate with her.
“Wu is afraid of engaging in a debate and has been talking nonsense in the past few days. The more he talks, the more loopholes he will reveal and become the subject of more jokes,” she said.
Wu said he did not rule out participating in a debate with Wang, but it would be difficult to do so because the KMT candidate has not talked much about her platform.
“If we were to have a public debate, there must be concrete things to discuss, but so far Wang has not presented any of her platform, so how can we have a debate?” he told reporters while canvassing votes.
“My campaign team has organized a town hall meeting this Sunday,” he said. “I will face the voters directly, listen to their input and suggestions, and answer all questions,” he said. “It would be much more meaningful than having a debate, which I expect would be subject to more smear tactics and accusations” by the opposition.
Wu’s platform includes relocating Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) and extending mandatory military service. Wang and the KMT camp mocked the former as a “half-baked” idea and the latter as proof that the DPP government would lead the nation into war.
The insults have also turned personal, with some KMT members recently calling Wu a nong bao (膿包, literally a pus-filled cyst and figuratively a worthless person), a play on the second character of his Chinese name yi nong.
They have also called him a “giant baby,” a “parachute candidate” who knows nothing about the electoral district and a holder of foreign assets, implying that he has more connections outside than within Taiwan.
Responding to questions about the DPP’s policy of “fighting China, safeguarding Taiwan” (抗中保台), Wu on Sunday said: “It would be more precise to say that we must ‘safeguard Taiwan, fight the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]’ as this is the consensus in Taiwan.”
“It is the CCP and the Beijing leadership who not only intimidate Taiwan, but also deny us operating space on the international stage. It is the CCP regime that poses a serious military threat to most neighboring countries,” Wu said.
“We are against the CCP, with its dictatorial government and authoritarian ways. We support Chinese who have the right to pursue freedom and democracy. This is a common desire of most people, and the consensus is to safeguard Taiwan from hostile forces,” he added.
“It is the greatest common denominator in Taiwan, and I believe it is a common position of most political camps — be it green, blue or white,” he said. “We all have to face this situation, which is why we need to change our national conscription system and extend mandatory military service to one year, and to institute military reforms.”
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