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Taiwan’s two main opposition parties agreed on Wednesday to put their respective candidates on a joint ticket for January’s hotly contested presidential election, a deal which sharply increases the odds that the ruling Democratic Progressive party loses power.
Former police chief and New Taipei City mayor Hou Yu-ih, nominated by the largest opposition party Kuomintang, and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, a surgeon who is running for the centrist Taiwan People’s party he founded, have been neck-and-neck in the polls. Both candidates have called for a resumption of dialogue with China, which Beijing broke off after the DPP came to power in 2016.
Political analysts and both parties believe that without joining forces, they are likely to lose in the January 13 vote to DPP candidate Lai Ching-te, the current vice-president who leads in the polls.
China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory and aims to bring the island under its control, has mounted a growing campaign of military intimidation, economic coercion and political infiltration against the country since the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen became president. Beijing has denounced Lai as a separatist and framed the presidential race as a choice between war and peace — rhetoric sometimes echoed by the opposition.
While security experts do not believe that China is preparing an immediate attack on Taiwan in the event of a DPP victory, analysts, government officials and opposition politicians have said the Chinese Communist party is likely to employ fewer military threats at least temporarily if the opposition wins.
The KMT and the TPP said they would decide whether Hou or Ko will lead the ticket — the main sticking point in negotiations held over weeks — based on the two candidates’ support ratings calculated from publicly available and internal polls.
The opposition hailed the agreement as a milestone in Taiwan’s political development and a major step towards taking power.
“For the sake of our shared values, for national security and the good of the people, we all put down our ego,” Hou said. “We will have a result over the next few days. No matter who will be the presidential candidate and who the running mate, we will join hands and work together to make this land safe.”
Three opinion polling experts, to be chosen by the KMT, the TPP and former president and KMT elder Ma Ying-jeou, will review publicly released polls conducted between November 7 and 17, plus internal polls conducted by the two parties, and calculate a mutually acceptable result from those, the parties said.
They have less than 10 days to make a decision before candidate registration for the election closes on November 24.
Ko called the agreement a historic moment. “We have never had a coalition government in Taiwan’s history, so how to form it and how to run it is of course all an experiment,” he said. “As for the results, we will still need everyone to make an effort.”
Lai leads the race with 32.5 per cent of support, and Hou is second with 23.9 per cent, closely followed by Ko with 22 per cent, according to a weighted poll of polls compiled by local outlet Taiwan News this week. Foxconn founder Terry Gou, who is running as an independent, trails with 7.5 per cent.
Formosa, one of Taiwan’s most reliable pollsters that has continuously published the most detailed polls on the race, has Lai at 35.2 per cent, Hou at 23.4 per cent, Ko at 19 per cent and Gou at 6.1 per cent in a poll published on Wednesday.
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