Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) plans to establish a platform to facilitate dialogue with young people, Gou’s campaign team said yesterday.
The platform would provide assistance to young Taiwanese and could operate under the Yonglin Education Foundation, said Amanda Liu (劉宥彤), a senior member of Gou’s campaign team for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential primary and chief executive officer of the foundation.
Gou gave instructions to set up the platform in a meeting at the foundation yesterday morning, after being briefed on the foundation’s work over the past few weeks, she said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
From giving talks on campuses and attending forums, Gou is aware that university students have many questions and he hopes to offer them a helping hand, Liu said.
“I believe that he will continue to have a role in public affairs, and that he will not say no to anything that can benefit Taiwan and the Republic of China,” she said.
Gou’s Tiger Fans — a Facebook fan group with more than 18,000 members — on Sunday announced that it had stopped collecting signatures for a petition for Gou to run in next year’s presidential election as an independent candidate, but Liu said that she was not aware of when the petition started or ended, as Gou’s office was not involved.
Gou on Sunday sent two handwritten letters to the fan group and other groups to thank them for their support, she said, adding that his office would hold a meeting with fans later this month once details are decided.
In its announcement, the fan club said that it had met its first-phase goal of collecting more than 50,000 signatures for the petition, launched last month.
The election laws say that a prospective candidate intending to run as an independent must collect signatures from 1.5 percent of the electorate from the previous legislative election, which means that 274,576 signatures are needed to put Gou on the Jan. 11 ballot.
“The stop is temporary, not the end, as we look forward to the beginning of the next phase,” the group said, adding that it would continue as soon as Gou makes “a final decision.”
Separately, KMT Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday said he and Gou share the same goal of building a better future for Taiwan.
In early June, Wang, who served as legislative speaker for nearly 17 years, said he would not to participate in the KMT’s primary after questioning whether the party could hold a fair race.
Asked if he would run as Gou’s vice president, Wang said that he would not rule it out.
“So far, that [being Gou’s running mate] has not been planned,” Wang said, adding that he and Gou had yet to discuss joining forces for the elections.
Asked if the two of them and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) could form an electoral alliance strong enough to beat KMT presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), Wang said: “This is a hypothetical question, as no such alliance has been formed.”
Yesterday, Han said that he had urged KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to unite the party’s members before the elections.
If the party headquarters got involved, certain heavyweights could be convinced to join forces, he said, adding that he would put forth his best effort to show his sincerity in cooperating.
Han said that he is still waiting for Gou to return his calls, adding that he had phoned Gou again and left a message on his voicemail.
He had met with Wang several times over the past month and would meet with him again if possible, Han added.
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