Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), who is seeking to run as an independent presidential candidate, took a dig at one of the opposition party contenders yesterday and gave no indication that an alliance was in the making.
During a visit to an Earth God temple in Taipei, Gou urged other visitors at the temple to “vote for the candidate, not the party,” and he said he was the only candidate who was completely independent and “free of baggage.”
“There is a new political party, and that party comes with baggage,” Gou said, in an apparent dig at former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Taiwan People’s Party chairman and presidential candidate, who founded the TPP in August 2019.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Last month, Gou said he would invite Ko and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate, New Taipei Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), to have a chat over coffee about the possibility of collaboration.
On Tuesday, when Ko and Gou attended a Ghost Festival banquet held by the Taipei Taxi Drivers’ Union, there was only a handshake and an exchange of pleasantries between them.
When asked yesterday about the prospects of an alliance with the two opposition candidates, Gou said he would arrange an in-person meeting with them soon to discuss that possibility.
Gou also denied news reports that he had been pressing the KMT to replace Hou as the party’s presidential candidate. Those reports stemmed from “miscommunication,” he said.
Meanwhile, when Hou was asked yesterday whether he would support a “Hou-Ko” ticket, he said he remains the only presidential candidate of the KMT.
Ko did not make any public appearances yesterday.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday said recent polls show that Hou’s public approval is increasing, and he called for cooperation between the three candidates.
A poll released yesterday by the online news outlet Formosa showed that support for Hou is at 17.8 percent, which is slightly ahead of Ko’s 17.1 percent. Hou holds a strong lead over Gou, who has a support rate of 11.6 percent. Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate, is leading the poll with 35.3 percent support.
The KMT’s internal polls show similar results, said Chu, who was speaking at a campaign event in Tainan yesterday for KMT legislative nominee Charles Chen (陳以信).
Given the apparent rising support for Hou, it is hoped that Ko and Gou would rally behind the KMT candidate for the greater good and put their egos behind them, to meet their supporters’ expectations of “ousting the DPP,” Chen said at a campaign rally.
Chu said he was vigorously pushing for an alliance between the three presidential candidates ahead of next year’s presidential election and he would not give up.
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