Will Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang draft its star mayor into the race for president against Terry Gou?
- KMT chairman says the fair thing to do would be to draft Han Kuo-yu into the party’s primaries in a field that this week expanded to include billionaire Terry Gou
Taiwan’s Beijing-friendly opposition might enlist popular Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu to run in its presidential primary, challenging billionaire Foxconn boss Terry Gou for the party’s candidacy.
Gou, 68, said this week that he was interested in vying for the Kuomintang’s (KMT) nomination for next year’s presidential election against the island’s leader, Tsai Ing-wen, from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party.
Calls had been mounting for Han, who took over Kaohsiung’s top job after a surprise win late last year, to run for president without going through a primary. But critics said that this would undermine the KMT’s selection process. Han has also stressed that he is not interested in being the island’s leader.
Asked on Friday whether Gou’s bid would influence the KMT’s nomination process, party chairman Wu Den-yih told POP Radio: “It would be fairer to invite or draft ... Han to run in the party’s primaries.
“Han was newly elected as Kaohsiung mayor and it is not convenient for him to seek the party’s nomination [to run for president] ... It would be fairer to draft or invite him to the primaries.”
Han sensationally overturned predictions in last year’s local elections to win Kaohsiung – a DPP stronghold in southern Taiwan – in a landslide. His popularity was widely credited with the KMT’s victory in 15 of Taiwan’s cities and counties.