Does anybody have any opinions about the Kaohsiung mayoral candidates? I’m leaning toward the KMT candidate, Ko, because of her track record of tackling issues faced by international students, foreign migrant workers, as well as expats/cram school teachers. I also like her emphasis on English education, pollution control, and making KH a more diverse commercial/service-oriented economy instead of just a niche high-tech/semi-conductor economy the incumbent candidate is proposing, which I think might create a wealth gap. All the semi-conductor folks will be living in a Hsinchu-like bubble while everybody else not employable in the tech sector get left behind. The DPP mayor also isn’t really promising anything new (that I know of).
On the other hand, my main concern is I don’t trust the KMT. I want the DPP to remain in power in Kaohsiung.
I’ve seen no indication that Kaohsiung will flip blue this election cycle. The last time this happened—with the Han wave in 2018—it was sensational national news. As you may know, newly elected KMT Mayor Han Kuo-yu then jumped ship to run for the Presidency in 2020, which he lost. The people of Kaohsiung were not amused and recalled him in a vote that was not even close to the margin needed for recall. The by-election which current DPP Mayor Chen Chi-mai won in 2020 was against a KMT candidate who had, it turns out, plagiarized some 96% of her MA thesis. Following a teary press conference, she was thrashed in the election.
The KMT may well come back some day when people tire again of the DPP. In Kaohsiung, that day will not be in November 2022.
I don’t know enough about her. It could be family connections, either to the “local” or military wings of the KMT. With luck, we could learn more in an informative post by Nathan Batto or Donovan Smith or others who write about local elections in Taiwan.
But as I said I don’t think it will matter. This is the DPP’s race to lose, and after only two years I don’t think Mayor Chen will lose it. He will sensibly ask for a real mandate following the 2020 by-election, and he will almost certainly get it.
My sister’s gangster neighbors are promoting her to the whole neighborhood, which makes me think maybe she has gang connections. But then again, most gangsters in Taiwan are somehow connected to the KMT, and they might just be promoting the party.
The missus says she’ll vote to keep the DPP mayor in.
Reason: he really hasn’t done anything stupid, which is now the new watermark for politicians.
In fact, it should be the standard watermark, cuz politicians always doing stupid things.
DPP gets credit (correctly or not, doesn’t matter) at getting tech biz to migrate south to Kaohsiung.
In his latest article covering the upcoming municipal elections, C Donovan Smith looks at the Taichung City (non) race and why the incumbant KMT mayor will almost certainly cruise to re-election.
Where is a good place to watch the election results live? I imagine that Western media won’t give live results like they do for American or British elections.
The first basic error in that article is that it refers to November 26 as “mid-term elections.” They are not—they are municipal, not national.
The second error is the claim that the DPP is positioned to do well on November 26. They are not, with most races likely to return incumbents such as Hou in New Taipei City (sorry @Marco) and Lu in Taichung City (this trend will however work in the DPP’s favour in Kaohsiung where Chen almost certainly will be given a full mandate after his by-election win).
But what about Taipei City? Will the conservative landowning class (which is not identical to “people who live in Taipei City”) choose the putative descendent of Chiang Kai-shek? Will Huang help split the blue vote, allowing Chen to sneak through the middle? I suppose we’ll see.
Another race to watch is Taoyuan (along with Hsinchu City and Keelung City). In terms of long-term direction, I think those places will tell us more about where Taiwan is heading than the race in the capital, however interesting it may be.
I think its more complicated than that. Thats not an analysis you would see in the Taiwanese media.
Taipei is blue mostly anyway. Chen is conservative. A lot of people dont like the DPP. Which is the reason that Huang Shan Shan has most of the youth vote.
Chen is too boomer. Look at his Line website.
Only deep blues are voting for Chiang because of the family stuff, and those people are old. Its nothing to do with a conservative landowning class
A lot of voters are annoyed with the DPP. This is the main point that hasnt been picked up. People think they havent been performing well domestically and not actually doing anything. Voters also dont like the fact they keep playing the cross-straits card.
Its like these articles live in some paralell universe.
Taipei for the medium term will always be more blue than other cities and does not reflect the mind and heart of the country. Once the old blue farts will extinguish themselves, a more interesting political scene can be had here.
The country is well shown in city like, as you said, Taoyuan, Taichung, Kaohsiung even. Keelung resents from the proximity with Taipei, but more and more people from the capital are fleeing there for the living costs.
Taipei County (I refuse to call it a city, they either split up the actual city area from the rural part, otherwise it’s silly to me) is basically just Taipei suburbs for political purposes, I still see it attached to the capital.
Why does this gaggle of foreign journalists and experts never actually watch Taiwan political shows or read the news, or reach out to local political experts and scholars?