The Straits Herald (reporter Xue Yang @ Taiwan Strait master brother) The Chinese Kuomintang's candidate for mayor of Kaohsiung is still pending, and in the absence of the will of the Middle-Zhuang generation, the 76-year-old former "director of health" Yang Zhiliang introduced himself, saying that "if the party needs it, it will be duty-bound." Looking back at the beginning of 2019, with the election of Han Hanyu as the mayor of Kaohsiung, a "whirlwind of Kaohsiung" blew up on the island, and many mainland tourists also admired Kaohsiung for tourism, and the Blue Army finally raised its eyebrows in the "Hong Kong Capital". However, in just over three years, the KMT in Kaohsiung fell into the dilemma of not being able to find a candidate for mayor, and the ups and downs made people sigh.
Yang Zhiliang
Before Han Hanyu was elected mayor of Kaohsiung in 2018, the former old Kaohsiung City had been governed by the Democratic Progressive Party since 1998, and in 2006, the KMT candidate Huang Junying almost won the mayoral throne, and finally lost more than 1,100 votes to the DPP candidate Chen Ju due to the "walking worker incident"; The former Kaohsiung County part has been in the "green governance" model since 1985, and all elections have been the DPP's big vote base. After the merger and upgrading of Kaohsiung counties and cities in 2010, public opinion on the island once believed that it was more difficult for the Kuomintang to turn around.
However, in 2018, Kaohsiung unexpectedly blew up the "Korean Wave", and Han Hanyu, who "parachuted in", finally defeated Chen Qimai, who had been operating locally for many years. This campaign also shows that under the long-term rule of the DPP, the people's minds have changed, the citizens are not unconditionally green, and if the KMT nominates the right candidate, it still has a chance to be elected. At the beginning of Han Hanyu's tenure, his administration had a honeymoon period, and the popular support ranked first among politicians, which proved that the citizens of Kaohsiung had high expectations for him.
Han Hanyu
However, when Han Hanyu was tempted to choose the 2020 "general election", the atmosphere at the grassroots level in Kaohsiung began to change greatly. Han's two defeats in 2020 ("general election" and recall) are enough to show the dissatisfaction of the Kaohsiung people with his failure to run for the "big position".
There are still Deep Blue scholars who believe that even if Han Hanyu does not participate in the "general election", his mayor of Kaohsiung will be removed. The author does not think so, if Han seriously fights for the municipal government, the Green Camp will lack legitimacy in initiating the recall. Moreover, in Yunlin, Yilan, and other places where the basic green is greater than the blue, the DPP has not launched a vote to remove the head of the Blue Camp, because they know very well that the recall is a double-edged sword, and the people and money are mobilized to vote, and in the end they may hurt themselves.
After Han Hanyu was deposed, he did not show a posture of deep ploughing in Kaohsiung, but moved his hukou back to Yunlin; Coupled with the death of Xu Kunyuan, the former speaker of the Kaohsiung City Council, and the fall of the current speaker Zeng Liyan, into a whirlpool of corruption, the Kaohsiung Blue Army is leaderless and demoralized, and even the candidate for the new mayor cannot be found.
On the other hand, the DPP, not only in Kaohsiung, but also in Kaohsiung, the Tsai authorities also sent many industrial benefits (such as the TSMC factory) to Kaohsiung, and at the end of last year, the Green Camp won the "South Vote to the North" by virtue of its victory in Kaohsiung, Tainan and other places, and finally achieved a good result of a home run.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Qimai
Compared with the DPP, the KMT lacks political figures rooted in the grassroots, usually serves no one, and the "airborne" candidates before the election are ultimately not solid, and Han Hanyu's experience in winning the election in 2018 may be difficult to replicate. Whether the Blue Camp pushes Yang Zhiliang or Zhang Yazhong, it cannot shake the DPP's rule.