All three candidates in the Dec. 9 mayoral election promised to turn the southern port city into a great place to live and visit. Taiwan Solidarity Union candidate Lo Chih-ming, 49, spoke first. Lo is currently a legislator with the TSU, a party started by former President Lee Teng-hui in 2001 based on his ideology of national sovereignty.
Calling himself a "true native son" of Kaohsiung, Lo promised to strengthen the city's tourism infrastructure, keep the city's unemployment rate below 5 percent, provide free textbooks to local elementary schools and double the current level of childcare subsidies if elected.
Lo challenged the Democratic Progressive Party's Chen Chu on her record as head of the central government's Council of Labor Affairs. He suggested that the employment of foreign workers in the construction of Kaohsiung's metro system under her tenure led to a rise in unemployment in the city.
Chen, 56, responded to the accusation by pointing out that the importation of foreign laborers was frozen during her term as CLA chief and that it had still been legal at the time metro construction began. She defended her abilities as an administrator, saying she is the type of person who "gets down to do things." She cited her 12 years of experience working in various levels of government where she was responsible for social and labor affairs. Chen promised to look after Kaohsiung's poor and weak.
"I have been working hard for Taiwanese society for the past 30 years. My integrity and conduct are all open to be examined by the public," Chen said. She was one of eight dissidents sent to prison by the KMT following the infamous 1979 Kaohsiung Incident, in which government forces and undercover agents clashed with democracy activists during a demonstration in the southern city.
While Chen drew attention to the achievements of Kaohsiung City Hall, which for almost eight years has been run by the DPP, as a guarantee for continuing progress under the party's rule, Kuomintang candidate Huang Chun-ying, 65, said that the DPP's ideology would not be helpful to Kaohsiung's economy.
Huang, a former professor and deputy mayor of Kaohsiung, said he supported the idea of establishing sea and air transportation links with China, on certain conditions. This way, 10,000 jobs would be created within four years and per-capita income would rise, Huang promised.
Chen disagreed, saying that direct links would not benefit the traditional industries that make up the bulk of the Kaohsiung economy. She argued that it is the wrong time to talk about direct links because China is still hostile to Taiwan, and the most important task at hand is to create more value-added industries.
Lo concurred, adding that direct links with China would only speed up the hemorrhage of skilled workers and money from the southern region of Taiwan, both to the north of the island and straight to China. He added that the topic is a moot point since the Kaohsiung mayor is not empowered to make foreign-relations decisions, such as those affecting cross-strait ties.
A series of corruption scandals involving officials in northern Taiwan over the past few weeks have become a hot-button issue even in the Kaohsiung race, and Lo seized the opportunity to question Huang's use of his special discretionary fund when he was serving as deputy mayor.
What began with the presidential "state affairs fund" scandal, in which the president and his coterie were investigated for alleged corruption and accounting irregularities in the disbursement of a special discretionary fund, led to parallel allegations against Taipei Mayor and KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou and his staffers at City Hall for similarly mishandling a discretionary mayoral allowance, a portion of which has allegedly been remitted directly into Ma's bank account each month for the past eight years.
The allegations against the two leaders have led to public discussion about the prevalence of such funds and the lack of accountability governing their use. It was reported in the local media that such "special accounts" have customarily been available to some 6,500 government officials since the 1950s. The funds, long an open secret in ROC politics, were considered a perk of power and not discussed openly until the opposition-led imperative to unseat President Chen Shui-bian led prosecutors to the idea of examining the use of the presidential discretionary fund. Since then, the trend has snowballed, tainting Ma and a host of other officials.
Huang responded by saying that he always insisted on using public monies in an honest manner, and that he welcomed an investigation into his official finances. Huang added that new laws and regulations are needed to clearly define the use and purpose of the mayoral special fund.
Chen promised that, if elected, she would make transparent the use of special allowance funds for government positions and insist on clear reporting of each expense, as well as putting the mayor's assets into trust.
Lo reminded voters that both the DPP and the KMT have records of corruption, adding that he is from a party that takes integrity seriously. He promised that, if elected mayor, he would immediately step down if he or his family members are found to be involved in any irregularities.
Recent polls show Chen trailing her KMT opponent by roughly 10 points, while Lo's support hovers at around 10 percent. Local Chinese-language newspapers quoted the KMT's top campaign strategists as saying that the special fund scandal surrounding the KMT chairman has had no negative impact yet on its races in Taipei or Kaohsiung. Ma was in Kaohsiung stumping for Huang on Nov. 19.