TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — With the next presidential election less than one year away, Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has praised the popularity of New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), reports said Wednesday (Feb. 15).

The comments followed a meeting between Foxconn Technology founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) and former Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on Tuesday (Feb. 14), during which the former reportedly expressed his wish to return to the KMT and become its presidential candidate.

Chu later said the KMT would nominate its strongest contender while describing Hou as a popular politician with deep local roots, the China Times reported. Hou has not yet declared his intentions, with critics saying he would be abandoning his voters by running for president so shortly after winning re-election for a second four-year term as mayor of New Taipei City just last November.

Chu singled out Hou’s capability to function as a “hen,” a strong presidential candidate who could help “downstream” candidates win seats in the legislative elections scheduled for the same day as the presidential polls.

The KMT still has to draw up a process to select a presidential candidate, a plan Gou said he was waiting for. In addition to Hou and Gou, Chu has also been frequently named by the media as a presidential contender.

The eventual KMT candidate could likely face vice president and Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and former Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), now chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party, in the Jan. 2024 election.