The only policy debate among Kaohsiung mayoral by-election candidates is to take place tomorrow afternoon and it is to be shown live on TV and the Internet.
Voting for the by-election is to take place on Aug. 15.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is represented by Kaohsiung City Councilor Jane Lee (李眉蓁), the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) by Kaohsiung City Councilor Wu Yi-jheng (吳益政) and the Democratic Progressive Party by former vice premier Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁).
Photo: CNA
The policy presentation is to be held at the Kaohsiung City Government’s Siwei Administrative Center from 2:30pm to 4pm.
Three moderators would be selected from a list of experts and civic group representatives, and the candidates would rank them before the commission asks them if they are willing to serve as debate moderators, Kaohsiung City Election Commission Chairman Lo Pang-chi (駱邦吉) said.
The commission would not announce the list of moderators before the event, Lo said.
Chen said that he is using spare time between events or while traveling to familiarize himself with pertinent points of his platform.
He said that he treats every policy point seriously and seeks to be intimately familiar with every detail.
His platform is to give due weight to public opinion and to make Kaohsiung better, Chen said, adding that he is methodical and would follow procedure if elected.
Wu said that he is consolidating his platform into ideas and concepts that people can easily understand.
Chen should present answers for the municipality’s debt of NT$300 billion (US$10.16 billion), propose how city finances would be separated from politics and explain how he would distribute the Tax Redistribution Fund, Wu said.
Lee said that her platform focuses on infrastructure, debt reduction and increasing wages, while addressing concerns regarding young people, women, farmers and fishers, as well as environmental issues.
Lee has been under fire over alleged plagiarism of her master’s thesis.
Lee has a support rate of only 21 percent, down 1 percentage point from a previous survey, an opinion poll released on Monday by TVBS showed.
Chen had the highest support rate of 55 percent, up 1 percentage point, while Wu only garnered 5 percent, the poll showed.
Nearly 19 percent of respondents did not express a preference for any candidate, it found.
The Anti-Air Pollution in Southern Taiwan Alliance said that none of the candidates addressed environmental concerns and the group would ask them to propose solutions to air pollution at the debate.
Citizens of the Earth, Taiwan urged the candidates to propose policies to address the threat of gas explosions.
In 2014, a series of gas explosions that began late on July 31 rocked Kaohsiung, causing 32 deaths and injuring 321 people.
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