President Lai Ching-te attended the campaign headquarters launch of DPP Chiayi City mayoral candidate Wang Mei-hui (王美惠) on the evening of Oct. 11. Chang Chi-kai (張啓楷), the joint KMT-TPP candidate, petitioned outside the venue and was held in a long standoff with police.
According to the Liberty Times and the United Daily News, Lai appeared at around 8 p.m. at the opening of Wang's headquarters. The event began at about 5 p.m. and an intersection along Gongming Road was closed to traffic. Newtalk reported that Lai gave four reasons for backing Wang.
광고 문의 · 300×250First, she is 'one of our own' who has worked the community for over two decades. Second, she served four terms as city councilor and two as legislator and ranked first nine times in a civic watchdog's evaluation. Third, Chiayi's city and county must cooperate. Fourth, the city needs a mayor who can work with the central government.
The United Daily News quoted Lai, speaking as DPP chair, as saying that if the party's Chiayi County and City candidates, Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) and Wang, both win and the central government backs them, the result would be 'definitely greater than one plus one.' He said Chiayi County has turned from an agricultural county into a tech county with a TSMC advanced packaging plant, and that balanced regional development is his wish as president.
Chang's petition and the standoff
At a morning press conference Chang put 'three livelihood questions' to Lai: when light rail construction would start, when prices would stabilize, and whether electricity rates would rise next January. At around 5 p.m. he and supporters stood at the Gongming Road-Weixin Road intersection, a few hundred meters from the venue, to hand a petition to the presidential motorcade asking for the Chiayi light rail project to be revived.
According to China Times and the Liberty Times, police twice held up warning signs citing possible illegal assembly, and the two sides stood off for nearly two hours. National Security Bureau staff were first said to be receiving the petition, then a DPP headquarters staffer arrived, but Chang refused, saying party and state were not separated. In the end Chiayi City police inspector He Ming-hsiang (何明祥) accepted it and the crowd dispersed peacefully.
Chang said Chiayi Mayor Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠) raised the high-speed rail connector track with Premier Cho Jung-tai a month ago in person and that they are due to meet on the 14th. He also said residents have waited 21 years for light rail. The reports carried no further explanation from police or the DPP.
Same night: KMT campaigns in New Taipei
Also on the night of the 11th, at the 35th anniversary of a Chiayi fellow-townsmen association in New Taipei's Sanchong District, New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih and Chiayi Mayor Huang appeared with KMT New Taipei mayoral candidate Li Szu-chuan (李四川). The United Daily News said about 2,000 people attended. Li, who said he grew up in a fishing village and moved north young, told the crowd 'Chiayi people are our own people'; Hou said people who rose from the grassroots and delivered results are worth trusting; Huang praised Li's deputy-mayor record and urged Chiayi natives to back him.
The Chiayi City race thus pits a DPP with the president on the stage against an opposition candidate seizing the light rail issue, while in New Taipei, home to many Chiayi natives, the KMT is appealing to hometown ties.
