TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — “I’ll fight you to the death” and “even if your polling is strong, you won’t be nominated; I just don’t want you” are just some of the comments KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) snarled at Taipei City Councilor Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) during a three-hour-long phone call.

This was when Chu tried to convince Lo not to run in the primary for Taoyuan City mayor, according to Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chiao-hsin’s (徐巧芯) account of the call. Neither Lo nor Chu have disputed this account, with Lo saying he had shared his grievances with her and publicly thanking her for sharing her righteous outrage with the public.

Meanwhile, Chu said that as chair he needs to tell the truth to candidates, not speak idle pleasantries. It’s primary season in Taiwan, and though not covered much in English, it’s brutal.

For example, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) made the head of his party’s central election evaluation committee cry after telling her to go home “and take care of your own dog” after disagreements over the contested Miaoli primary process. He has since said his “EQ isn’t good” and that he needs to improve it and will apologize to her personally.

At the same time, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been running factional battles across the country, and its recent Pingtung County Commissioner primary got ugly. Buckle in, this year’s primary season is shaping up to be a bloodsoaked battlefield of competing egos, factions and interests. And it’s only just beginning.

So far, the primary that has dominated local headlines is the KMT mayoral primary in Taoyuan. The TPP will have its Taoyuan primary later this month, but it isn’t attracting much attention. The DPP's primaries will take place in May or June, and they are certainly enjoying biding their time to let the chaos on the KMT side play out before making any moves.

Battle royale

Taoyuan is considered a key battleground and one the KMT considers a must-win. One of the “big six” municipalities, it generally leans blue (pro-KMT). However, for the last eight years it has been led by the DPP’s very popular Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), who is now term-limited.

While the KMT wants to win Taoyuan “back,” the DPP was initially caught off guard by Cheng’s win and by the strength of his re-election and no doubt wants to do everything it can to keep it in the green (pro-DPP) camp by leveraging his popularity. With the stakes so high, the Taoyuan race is drawing a lot of attention.

For Eric Chu, this race is personal. Taoyuan is his home turf, and he previously served two terms there as county commissioner before Taoyuan County was re-organized into a special municipality.

If Chu wants to go on to be the KMT’s candidate for president in 2024, as widely speculated, he has to fulfill his promise of a successful campaign in this year’s elections or risk losing the support of his party. Taoyuan is a closely watched battleground for the party, and losing his hometown would look very bad for him.

Chu has made it clear he wants a local candidate, and five or so current and former Taoyuan legislators have been widely discussed as potential candidates. Why he is so adamant about not wanting an outsider can’t be known for sure, but it is possible he has in mind a few local proteges who would be loyal to him, or he owes favors incurred during his own rise in local politics. Or both.

Enter Lo Chih-chiang. His political rise was kickstarted by working as spokesman for Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his successful 2008 run for president, which eventually led Lo to be deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office.

Titanic struggle

Lo was reportedly the brains behind Ma’s attempt to use law enforcement to come up with charges against then-legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and expel him from the KMT. After that titanic intraparty battle ended in failure and legal cases, he resigned. After all that, Ma still thought highly of Lo and awarded him the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon.

Lo re-entered politics in 2018, successfully winning his first-ever political campaign for a city council seat in what is considered a fairly safe district in Taipei: Wenshan/Daan. In February of this year, he announced he wasn’t going to run for re-election, claiming that his assistant would do more to champion youth advancement in the party.

Of course, that sent us political junkies into a tizzy of speculation as to what Lo's next move might be. He’s well known, ambitious, and has previously made noises about running for president, or KMT chair, or Taipei mayor — but with two of those posts not immediately up for grabs and Wayne Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) dominating the polls in the Taipei mayoral race, none of those positions seem like obvious choices.

Lo tipped his hand with a “1,000 kilometer listening tour” in Taoyuan. By March 27, he was ready to announce.

He didn’t. Chu got the secretary-general of the KMT to call Lo and ask him to postpone the announcement.

Lo didn’t intend to delay long, however, and wrote on Facebook that he would make a major announcement on April 2. That’s when Chu made that three-hour call to inform Lo he wasn’t going to nominate him, no matter what.

Party unity

Lo abruptly canceled his announcement in the wee hours before it was due. Chu then told the public that Lo was a strong candidate and that he would find a “suitable” place for him to run, going on to say plenty of nice things about party unity, Lo, and the future, as if everything were sorted and fine.

Then, out came the daggers. Two of Lo’s fellow city councilors came out guns blazing over Chu’s phone call, painting him as a ruthless and abusive bully. This was successful, as a torrent of abuse was directed toward Chu. Major figures in the party started to split between those blandly calling for a resolution to the issue and those openly supporting Lo.

Although Lo thanked the councilors for their support, he didn’t directly attack Chu or the party. Instead, he made clear that he respected the party’s procedures, would support whoever the nominee was, and had no plans to leave the party.

If my suspicions are correct, this was a masterpiece of political theater on Lo’s part. At every opportunity, he was deferential to the party and to Chu but set up others to go after Chu’s kneecaps.

Lo successfully painted himself as the polite victim and Chu the thuggish aggressor. Chu was on the defensive, and his authority began to be openly questioned.

So, Chu sent his secretary-general to once again step in, announcing publicly the party had already ruled out nominating Lo because he was a “weak” candidate. The problem was that Lo came in second or third in KMT polling, and the top-polling potential candidate had already ruled himself out because he had only served half of his term as a legislator.

The other person vying for second or third in the polls was in the same situation, though she hadn’t ruled out running. So, Lo was indeed potentially viable, but this only increased sympathy for Lo in the KMT ranks and further damaged Chu.

Political theater

Then, Lo again lashed out at Chu. He resigned his post as KMT deputy secretary and, just after midnight on April 6, announced on Facebook he was running in the primary regardless.

He apologized to his friends and supporters for making them worry for so long, thereby deflecting the issue from his own ambition and making it look like it was on their behalf.

In his announcement, Lo said he would absolutely respect whatever decision the party made and would fully support whoever the nominee was, cleverly shifting the onus onto the party’s central standing committee. He also stated that the chair had the right to nominate the candidate but that it was up to the candidates to decide if they run or not.

Lo’s political handiwork is striking. He has successfully garnered a huge amount of publicity and sympathy that will serve him well no matter what the party does while forcing the KMT to choose between sticking with Chu’s will or caving to public pressure.

Lo savagely undercut Chu’s authority in the press across the political spectrum while managing not to come across as a difficult, disloyal, out-of-town politician trying to parachute into a plum bigshot candidacy with only one electoral victory under his belt. Worse for Chu, he appears to have given license to enemies to fully come out into the open.

Deep blue

Chu should be particularly concerned about two enemies: one is the deep blue press, the other is Broadcasting Corporation of China chair and media personality Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康).

While it isn’t surprising the pan-green media is loving this story, the deep blue Want Want China Times newspaper seems to be loving it even more. They are running story after story highlighting opposition to Chu and dredging up dodgy online polling showing Lo ahead by margins that can only be described as fantastic.

Jaw is already openly running for president in 2024 and has previously indicated interest in being KMT chair. He has up to now been supporting Chu as chair, but everyone knows that in the long term he’s gunning for him.

Jaw hasn’t outright said he wants Chu to step down, but he’s derisively telling Chu what to do and how to handle the situation while openly supporting Lo and encouraging others to do so. Worse for Chu, Jaw is making points that sound logical, like why not hold a regular poll-based primary including Lo, as is pretty common practice, to determine the best candidate for the party?

Lo has effectively backed Chu into a corner, and it is hard to see a way out for Chu that doesn’t involve taking at least some damage.

Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文) is a regular contributing columnist for Taiwan News, the central Taiwan correspondent for ICRT FM100 Radio News, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, co-founder of Taiwan Report (report.tw) and former chair of the Taichung American Chamber of Commerce.