ONE FOR THE ‘UNDERDOG’:Yao will face Ko Wen-je, and maybe Neil Peng in the second round, and said that the election would pit the privileged against ordinary citizens
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) has won the party’s first-stage primary for the Taipei mayoral election and will enter the second stage, in which he and independent hopefuls will compete for the final candidacy of the pan-green camp, the DPP said yesterday.
DPP Secretary-General Lin Hsi-yao (林錫耀) at a press conference yesterday morning announced Yao’s victory in a public opinion poll conducted by three institutions on Tuesday night, but did not release the poll results, citing a pre-survey agreement among the three contenders.
However, Yao’s office later released the final tally, which showed that Yao received an average support rate of 30.7 percent, beating lawyer Wellington Koo’s (顧立雄) 27.1 percent and Legislator Hsu Tain-tsair’s (許添財) 24.2 percent.
The survey, which pitted each contender against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate, former Taipei EasyCard Co chairman Sean Lien (連勝文), was the first part of a two-stage primary mechanism approved by the DPP.
Lien led every DPP hopeful in the three separate surveys — which collected 3,743 valid samples — with support rates from 38.5 percent to 41.7 percent.
For the second-stage primary, another public opinion poll to decide the final candidate is to be conducted before June 13 between Yao, National Taiwan University Hospital physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) — whose support rate has been leading all pan-green camp aspirants — and possibly Neil Peng (馮光遠), an award-winning screenwriter.
The DPP could organize debates between second-stage contenders before the public opinion poll is held, party spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said.
A three-member task force has established to handle the “integration talks” between Yao and Ko about a campaign platform, political values and follow-up cooperation after the primary is decided, Lin said.
The first-stage primary between DPP aspirants became a three-way race after former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) dropped out on Saturday.
After hearing the result, Yao said that he was surprised at how well he has done as an “underdog.”
Judging from past election results in Taipei, he has a chance at defeating the favored Lien as he is trailing by such a small margin with the election still six months away, Yao said.
“Again, I would have to say that the mayoral election in November will be a battle between the privileged class and ordinary citizens,” he said, referring to how he would campaign against Lien.
Koo, who finished second in the first-stage primary, said in a statement released yesterday that he pledged full support to Yao and would keep working for the people.