The close race between the two Taipei mayoral candidates has prompted the two camps to largely abandon traditional hard-line campaign strategies and de-emphasize party loyalty for the purpose of attracting support from swing voters, as the election looms in less than 10 days.
Both Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) so far this month have refrained from holding large-scale campaign events to consolidate their base. Instead, they have filled daily schedules with visits to local districts to interact with residents.
For Hau, who has always been awkward expressing himself in public, communicating with voters face-to-face has not been his forte. To help him enhance his connection with voters, the KMT has arranged for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as the KMT chairman, and KMT -Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), to accompany Hau he intensively canvass the streets this month looking for support.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Last week alone, Ma campaigned for the mayor on three consecutive days. He spent more than two hours at the Raohe Street night market on Saturday night, leading Hau to shake hands with visitors, and sat down chatting with vendors while eating stinky tofu.
The 58-year-old mayor has also learned to stay and chat with the crowd when attending municipal activities, rather than leaving immediately after addressing the events.
Although the KMT is holding a rally on Sunday for Hau, it is playing down its previous campaign theme of anti-corruption in response to former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) most recent sentence of a total of 19 years of for corruption charges, and the KMY is turning it into a carnival-like event.
King said the rally, named “A Walk for -Taipei-Taipei Flies High,” will be filled with balloons and toys, and all of Taipei’s residents are welcome to share their thoughts about the city’s future.
The new strategy to tone down the traditional “deep-blue” rhetoric in Hau’s election campaign can also be found in his latest campaign ad, in which he carries a girl on his back wearing a pink T-shirt. The KMT’s blue party color was absent in the ad.
Su, on the other hand, has been leading a non-traditional campaign since the very beginning. With the slogan “Let Taipei surpass Taipei,” his campaign has focused more on social welfare issues and has adopted bright colors such as orange and pink for his campaign.
He has made use of popular online social networking services like Facebook and Plurk to discuss municipal issues and has replaced large-scale campaign activities with hip-hop concerts and “living room meetings” in all of the city’s 12 districts, where local residents have been invited to share their concerns with him.
As a seasoned politician who has maintained a grassroots style, Su interacts with voters more passionately than his KMT counterpart and never hesitates to shake hands or give hugs to supporters.
Su’s campaign spokesman Lee Hou-ching (李厚慶) said reshaping the political alignment in Taipei City, a traditional KMT stronghold, is a main reason behind Su’s decision to run in the election.
The increasing number of swing voters in this election campaign, Lee said, showed that the traditional support bases of the pan-blue and pan-green camps in the city can be changed.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at