Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) on Friday said that he had collected enough signatures to qualify to run as an independent in January’s presidential election.
Gou announced his bid in August, saying that he wanted to unite the opposition and ensure that Taiwan would not become “the next Ukraine,” saying the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had taken Taiwan to the brink of war by antagonizing China.
“Your signatures are a responsibility for me, and your signatures are ... [an] encouragement to me. I will continue to work hard to the end,” Gou’s campaign office quoted him as saying in a statement.
Photo: CNA
The office was planning to establish a Father Gou’s Hope Foundation, to which Gou would donate NT$10 million (US$310,492) for every 100,000 signatures received, campaign office spokesperson Chen Chia-yi (陳家頤) said yesterday.
NT$100 million would be donated to the foundation if more than 1 million signatures were received, she said, adding that the foundation would use the money for charity involving pet, education and healthcare issues, among others.
Gou’s campaign office spokesperson and petition chief consultant Huang Shih-hsiu (黃士修) said the billionaire had recently met with many grassroots-level personnel, and wanted to establish the foundation after listening to their suggestions.
The office would continue to use social messaging app Line to gather proposals and create a commission to choose which proposals should be executed first, Huang said.
Gou, who stepped down as head of Hon Hai in 2019, must gather close to 300,000 signatures from people who are eligible to vote by Nov. 2 to qualify as an independent candidate, election regulations state.
The Central Election Commission is to review the signatures and announce the results by Nov. 14.
Gou’s efforts to unite the opposition to “take down the DPP” have made little apparent progress.
Instead, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have been considering how they might work together against the DPP, potentially by having their presidential candidates team up.
Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the DPP’s presidential candidate, has remained steadfastly ahead in most polls.
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