Taiwan’s billionaire Terry Gou on Monday announced that he would run for January’s president elections. Gou is the founder of a major Apple supplier Foxconn. He expressed his desire to unite the opposition and not let the country become “the next Ukraine”.
There are three more contenders for the top post in the country. However, poll data suggests that he lags far behind the front-runner, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) William Lai. Lai is Taiwan’s vice-president.
Gou’s campaigning efforts
Gou, 72, retired as Foxconn’s CEO in 2019 and launched his first presidential campaign; however, he withdrew after failing to get the Kuomintang KMT’s candidature, Taiwan’s largest opposition party. The KMT has historically supported strong connections with China.
Gou made a second attempt to be the KMT’s presidential candidate earlier this year, but the party settled on Hou Yu-ih, the mayor of New Taipei City.
Gou has been visiting Taiwan over the past two weeks and organising events that resembled campaign rallies, fueling rumours that he intends to run as an independent. Gou attacked the DPP while speaking in front of two enormous Taiwanese flags at a convention hall in Taipei.
Making a speech, he said, “Under the rule of the DPP in the past seven years or so, internationally, they have led Taiwan towards the danger of war. Domestically, their policies are filled with mistakes. The era of entrepreneur’s rule” has begun.
Making a plea to voters, he said, “Give me four years and I promise that I will bring 50 years of peace to the Taiwan Strait and build the deepest foundation for the mutual trust across the strait. Taiwan must not become Ukraine and I will not let Taiwan become the next Ukraine.”
Gou’s party unsupportive
Despite the fact that the DPP advocates for Taiwan’s independence from China, the government it leads has frequently offered discussions with China, but these offers have been turned down. Gou’s main message during his pre-campaign activities has been that the DPP must be removed from government in order to prevent war with China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory.
Election laws stipulate that Gou needs to collect over 300,000 voter signatures by November 2 in order to be eligible to run as an independent. By November 14, the Central Election Commission will have examined the signatures and announced the results.
Gou’s candidature runs the risk of further fracturing the opposition vote, according to Huang Kwei-bo, a former KMT deputy secretary general and associate professor of diplomacy at Taipei’s National Chengchi University. “Any split on the non-DPP side would mean Lai’s sure victory in January,” he said.
Gou reaffirmed his request for “unity” among the opposition parties, pleading with Hou and Ko Wen-je of the tiny Taiwan People’s Party to meet with him and discuss strategies for working together to defeat the DPP in the election.
However, the KMT voiced its “extreme regret” over Gou’s decision and asked him to back Hou, the party’s nominee.
Hou told reporters that he was focusing on carrying out the party’s mission and that his “attitude towards standing for president has never changed.”
While putting a lot of effort into Ko’s own campaign, Gou’s party claimed that it respected Gou’s right to run.
