TAICHUNG, Taiwan — Taiwan's presidential race has taken more interesting and quirky turns in recent weeks, including the introduction of "The Three Little Pigs" into the political discussion.
Both the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Foxconn founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) have been assiduously cultivating relations with local patronage faction politicians who have considerable get-out-the-vote strength. Gou in particular seems to be gaining more of their support, in spite of dismal poll numbers.
Gou has been holding election-style “mainstream public opinion” rallies in spite of not having declared himself a candidate officially. He has been making statements that all but imply it, including saying the nation needs a president with economic experience and “if the people want me, I’ll stand up and serve the people.” None of the declared candidates have a background in business or economics, but Gou does.
A rally in Miaoli took an unusual turn that caused a rebuke from the Kuomintang (KMT) to one of their members. Gou spoke at the rally flanked by current County Commissioner Zhong Dongjin (鍾東錦), formerly of the KMT, and former County Commissioner Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) of the KMT.
Gou rallied the crowd to “take down” the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). However, when Hsu took the mike he said: “We not only want the DPP to step down, we also want to take down the KMT so the KMT can thoroughly reflect on itself.”
Zhong’s reaction was one of the most memorable of this campaign season. First he started laughing nervously and did a face plant. Hsu later claimed he “misspoke,” but looking at the video it appears very intentional.
Another incident involves the Nantou County council deputy speaker, who savaged Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) in a Facebook post and announced his dim view of his prospects by saying “if (Hou) wins I will eat vegetarian for the rest of my life.” Hou cleverly responded, “Eating vegetarian isn’t a bad choice.”
Family fractures
More fractures are appearing in political families in central, east and south Taiwan where factions are still prevalent. It’s possible these families genuinely disagree internally, but they might also be hedging their bets on the eventual winner.
In Hualien, the county council speaker was until recently KMT and publicly supports their candidate Hou Yu-ih, but his wife is the president of the Taiwan People’s Party Hualian Women’s Power Support Association and supports Ko. In Pingtung, the county council speaker supports Gou, while his daughter, the mayor of Pingtung City supports Hou.
In Changhua, the county council speaker recently quit the KMT and said he will support Gou in collecting the necessary signatures to run for president, as Gou does not have the backing of a qualified party. His sister is a local legislator and high-ranking KMT party official, and is standing by Hou.
The most powerful family to have such a split is the famous Chang family of Yunlin County, and their influence spreads wide. Former Yunlin County Commissioner Chang Jong-wei (張榮味) supports Gou, while his younger sister Chang Li-shan (張麗善), the county commissioner, supports Hou.
Chang Jong-wei is a key supporter of Gou and organized a banquet for Gou attended by 850 people, including some of those county council speakers and interestingly, influential deep blue former KMT lawmaker Alex Tsai (蔡正元). During his speech, Chang somewhat surprisingly said he hoped that none of the three main parties would form the majority in the next legislature.
3 Little Pigs
It was during Gou’s speech that he introduced "The Three Little Pigs." He described how the straw and wood houses of the first two pig brothers failed to save their homes from the big, bad wolf and, in the end, the three brothers were united in the third brother’s brick house. He explained the big, bad wolf was Lai Ching-te, and the three little pigs needed to be united under one roof to repel him.
Note that this includes him as one of the pigs, implying he is on par with the other two, in spite of trailing both significantly in the polls. He called on Hou and Ko to join him for a unity meeting over coffee.
Hou said he would accept, but complained that his team had already tried to arrange a meeting three times previously, to no avail. Gou replied “leave the past in the past.”
As of this writing, there has been no word from the Ko camp on whether he will join or not, but he has already made it clear that he intends to run at the top of the ticket no matter what. Hou has as well.
However, Gou may have already harmed his chances of a “Three Little Pigs” meetup. At a rally on Saturday (Aug. 19), he said, “I don’t have many enemies, (but) now our two opposition parties (TPP and KMT) make me their enemy. They do don't dare confront Lai Ching-te, they don’t dare attack the DPP, they attack me, the independent that is part of no faction, attacking this representative of public opinion.”
On Sunday (Aug. 20) the three little pigs and the big, bad wolf have all agreed to attend a rally for pedestrian safety in Taipei. All eyes will be on the interactions between them, if any.
