New Taipei City Councilors Seek Hou for Photos|參選人搶拍合照 侯友宜當跨區母雞?

For the 2018 local elections, the Kuomintang has set a goal of winning over half the cities and counties, and especially has aspirations for winning Taipei City and New Taipei City. However, there seems to be a discrepancy between the level of support for its Taipei City mayor candidate, Ting Shou-chung, and its New Taipei City mayor candidate, Hou Yu-ih. One KMT Taipei City councilor says Ting's passive kind, or "Buddhist" minded election strategy, has grassroots voters, a little worried.


Kuomintang Taipei City Councilor Tai Hsi-chin poses for a photo with the party's New Taipei City mayor candidate, Hou Yu-ih. This resulted in speculation that Tai doesn't think the party's Taipei City mayor candidate, Ting Shou-chung, has enough election influence and crossed municipal lines to campaign with someone with greater influence. Tai immediately denied this, saying he had already taken a photo with Ting. At the same time, he acknowledged that the grassroots is somewhat concerned about Ting's "Zen" approach to the election.

In truth, some grassroots voters are a little worried about Legislator Ting's approach to the elections. They feel his approach is akin to treading water and believe this could hurt his campaign in the end.

Many incumbent Taipei City councilors have taken photos with Hou. In fact, Hou is so popular that even borough chiefs and councilors from Hsinchu City have traveled to New Taipei to get campaign photos with him. They say Hou is an election heavyweight who transcends municipal lines. At the same time, they also expressed support for Ting.

Legislator Ting is our good friend. He is everyone's friend. We are all in this fight together and we are working together towards a common goal, which is to give our councilor candidates a chance to get elected. This is a good thing. I've always thought of him as a good, solid person and we jointly promote good policies.

The KMT has set a goal of winning at least half of Taiwan's cities and counties in the upcoming elections, especially Taipei and New Taipei. Hou is featured prominently in New Taipei City councilor candidate billboards, while Ting appears in many but not as many billboards in Taipei. Who is the heavyweight in this year's elections? Only time will tell.