By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
The office of former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday denied media reports that Lu was interested in running in the Taipei mayoral election next year as a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday quoted anonymous sources as saying that Lu was interested in running and has begun visiting communities in the city to garner support.
Lu has been promoting a campaign in Taipei to stop the installation of fuel rods in the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) via a local referendum, after a similar proposal she made in New Taipei City failed.
According to Lu’s office, the former vice president laughed off calls for her to run in the Taipei election while she was advocating against the fuel rods in Yilan County and New Taipei City.
The office also denied that Lu had made derogatory comments on several DPP members who have expressed interest in entering the Taipei mayoral race, including National Taiwan University physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Taipei City Council Deputy Speaker Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) and DPP Legislator Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財).
Lu was quoted as saying that Chou lacked charisma, Ko did not know the party well enough and Hsu has not done any work with local communities.
Taipei has been one of the most difficult constituencies for the DPP to win electoral races in, with former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) still the only DPP mayor in the city’s history after narrowly winning a three-way contest in 1994.
No DPP member has officially announced their candidacy for the Taipei race yet.
According to the party’s nomination guidelines for mayoral and commissioner elections, which were finalized last week, negotiations will be conducted in constituencies where there are two or more candidates to determine the final nominee.