‘CONDITIONAL’? If the Democratic Progressive Party nominates its own candidate for the Taipei mayoral election next year, the New Party will throw its support behind Ko
Taipei Times
Date: Dec 03, 2017
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter
New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) said he would throw his conditional support behind
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je yesterday talks to reporters at an event to mark the 100th anniversary of the Taipei School for the Visually Impaired. Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
independent Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) re-election bid, saying Ko’s cross-strait direction is similar to that of his party.
Yok made the remarks in response to media inquiries about next year’s local elections during a gathering with New Party supporters in New York on Friday evening.
“We have our strategies for Taipei. If the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] does not field its own candidate for the capital’s mayoral election, the New Party will field one,” Yok said.
If the DPP nominates its own candidate, the New Party will throw its support behind Ko, Yok said, adding that Ko’s stance on maintaining cross-strait interaction corresponds with that of the New Party, a smaller Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spin-off that advocates for peaceful unification.
Ko, an independent who has described himself as being “deep green” on the traditional blue-green political spectrum, won the mayorship in 2014 thanks in part to the DPP’s decision to cooperate with him by not nominating its own candidate.
However, Ko and the DPP have become estranged, particularly after Ko categorized the nature of cross-strait relations as “both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family” at the 2015 Taipei-Shanghai forum in China. [FULL STORY]