New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, yesterday said collaboration between the KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) should not be a “zero-sum” game, but rather be based on shared values, amid calls from TPP Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) to let the polls decide how the two parties should approach a potential joint ticket.
Hou responded to media requests for him to elaborate, after he said during an interview on Friday that “a joint KMT-TPP ticket is not the only option.”
Ko on Wednesday recommended comparing support for himself and Hou in polls, with the front-runner being the joint presidential candidate, while the other camp should recommend a vice presidential candidate.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
The KMT and TPP have been in talks for months over a possible joint presidential ticket to challenge Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, who is leading in polls.
Any collaboration between parties should take place only after the core values of all sides are aligned, and such collaboration should follow clear rules, so as to win public trust and live up to people’s expectations, Hou said.
In addition, the core values of each party, its policies and goals should be clearly defined in a covenant or guidelines, Hou said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
He added that his core values were “opposing Taiwan independence and maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait” and “ending corruption and [bringing about] a transition of political power,” and he hoped that these views were shared with those of the TPP.
Separately, Ko yesterday said while Hou had called for a standard operation procedure for forming a “blue-white” alliance, he thinks such procedure should be based on public opinion.
The TPP has clearly suggested how public opinion can be expressed, he added.
As the TPP has taken several opinion polls as a reference to discuss how the “blue-white” alliance should be formed, polling should not be the only deciding criterion, Hou said.
Asked if he thinks the KMT is afraid of polls in favor of the TPP, Ko said: “Don’t say that about other people.”
Ko added that democratic politics is based on public opinion, and polls are the standard method to measure public opinion.
Ko said although some people questioned his previous comment about inaccurate poll results, he thinks only polls by certain media outlets are biased, and if multiple polls are conducted by several agencies, they should present a credible result.
Asked if he is worried that pan-green supporters would give tactical responses, Ko said that is a technical problem that does not need to be discussed, and primary elections are an example showing the reliability of polling.
Meanwhile, after the preface of Ko’s new comic book titled Keep Promise (漫畫柯文哲) stirred controversy, his election campaign office yesterday announced the book would be reprinted and its launch would be postponed.
“I feel sorry for the publisher, as it has already finished printing the books,” Ko said yesterday.
Ko wrote in the preface that Taiwan’s comic books seem to target children and the ones for adults are only for amusement purposes, and when he visited the creative animation bases at Taipei’s Ximending area and Huaying Street (華陰街), he only found Japanese romantic comics made for girls, but had not seen any comics discussing important matters.
As the preface stirred discontent among those in the comic industry, Ko’s office yesterday said he highly respects the industry and supports anime and comics creators.
It was not Ko’s intention to make the industry professionals feel disrespected, it said, adding that Ko’s office and the publisher had decided to reprint the book, and postpone the launch date to the middle of this month.
Additional reporting by Liao Hsueh-ju
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