TVBS said on Oct. 7 that the KMT's Chiang Wan-an and the DPP's Enoch Wu (Shen Po-yang) had accepted its invitation. With 52 days to polling day, the jockeying has begun over timing, format and the first topic.
According to the United Daily News and TVBS, the broadcaster announced on Oct. 7 that the two candidates for Taipei mayor in the 2026 local elections, Chiang Wan-an of the Kuomintang and Enoch Wu (Shen Po-yang) of the Democratic Progressive Party, had both accepted an invitation to a televised debate. The announcement came 52 days before the vote in late November. The first public face-off between the incumbent mayor and his challenger now looks largely settled.
광고 문의 · 300×250No date has been fixed. The United Daily News, relaying TVBS, said the preliminary plan is a Saturday afternoon in one of the weeks before the election. Whether there will be cross-examination or questions from the press has also not been decided, and TVBS said it would respect the views of both camps.
Drug policy as the opening topic
The two sides have clashed repeatedly in recent days over harm-reduction drug policy, one reason the issue is drawing attention as a debate subject. Wu said he places no limits on the direction or format and urged Chiang to take up the topic in the first session, adding that he thought it would be fine.
Chiang replied that any municipal issue can be discussed, including drugs and his own position, but left negotiations on details to his staff, so the haggling over dates and rules is likely to continue at that level. The report did not say whether other candidates would be invited.
What Wu said in his interview
In a recent interview with the United Daily News and the Chao Shao-kang war room program, Wu said he was not an initiator of the mass recall campaign but strongly supported it because of what he called turmoil in the legislature and bills that crossed national security red lines. Asked whether recalls tore society apart, he said recall is a power granted by the Constitution and that calling the use of a granted power divisive made little sense. On the death penalty, he said that in the long run its use should decline.
He also said an election should be a happy occasion and that he approached the race in that spirit. The KMT may keep pressing on such remarks and on his record, so the stage is likely to host a direct collision of these issues alongside policy blueprints. Once the date and rules are settled, how each camp prepares will be one variable to watch in the final stretch of the race.
