The presidential candidates of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) presented their policy proposals at the second presidential debate on Tuesday afternoon.
Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the DPP candidate, concentrated on digital transformation and his plans to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, continuing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) policy of developing renewables and moving away from nuclear energy. He talked of expanding childcare and long-term care, tuition and rent subsidies for young people, boosting the semiconductor industry and developing artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the KMT candidate, said he supported the development of renewable energy, but disagreed with the government’s implementation, asking Lai if he would abandon the 2025 “nuclear-free homeland” policy.
With a background in law enforcement, Hou was in his comfort zone talking about strategies to combat fraud, drugs, guns and organized crime.
TPP Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said he agreed with the need to develop renewables, but, like Hou, differed on the implementation, saying that the decommissioning of the Guosheng and Ma-anshan nuclear power plants should be postponed, adding that inspections should be carried out on the mothballed Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City, to determine whether construction should continue.
Ko also talked about the nation’s low birthrate and rapidly aging population.
Each candidate had clearly prepared well for the debate. Ko stood out the most, but only because he differed from his usual presentation, being focused and not committing gaffes.
However, his ideas left much to be desired.
On nuclear power, Ko criticized Lai for previously having said that nuclear power plants might be brought back on line to fill surplus demand when needed: a legitimate criticism of a daft idea.
His attack on Hou for an apparent U–turn — having refused in the past to store spent fuel rods in New Taipei City — was legitimate, but unimaginative, as any politician should have the right to change course when the situation demands it.
However, nobody should be talking at this point of restarting construction of the fourth plant.
Ko made his proposals on childcare and the falling birthrate issue early last month: They failed to impress the public then, and nothing has changed since. Micro-adjustments to childcare and cash incentives do not cut the mustard, and sub-replacement rates are a notoriously intractable problem worldwide.
Early in the campaign, Lai was consistently the front-runner, with Ko nipping at his heels and Hou in a distant third. The situation changed late last month, a week after the breakdown of ill-fated “blue-white alliance” negotiations. An opinion poll released then by online news outlet my-Formosa.com placed Lai and Hou neck-and-neck at about 31 percent, with Ko at 25 percent. The most recent my-Formosa poll, published on Tuesday, has Lai at 38.7 percent, Hou at 29.7 percent and Ko at 16.6 percent.
Neither Lai nor Hou offered any surprises in the debate. If the polls are to be believed, they hardly needed to. Lai and Hou wanted to stay on message and avoid slipups. Ko needed to be far more impressive than he was.
Hou needs to worry about the 9 percent gap between him and Lai — widening again after apparent parity — and make adjustments to his campaign.
Lai needs to maintain a steady course and avoid any controversy. He must have the desire to siphon off some of the young people’s vote from Ko, as they are unlikely to support the KMT’s candidate.
The question is, will Ko continue to hemorrhage support, and if so, will it gravitate toward Lai or Hou?
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