His off-colour jokes, provocative streak and relative lack of political experience make Ko Wen-je the wildcard choice for this weekend’s closely watched presidential elections in Taiwan. But with an impressive turnout at recent rallies and a huge following on social media, there are signs that the outsider may have been underestimated.
The vote on Saturday, in which 19 million Taiwanese will choose their next president, is one of the most closely contested races since the self-governing island first held elections in 1996. Legislative elections, which are looking just as uncertain, will be held on the same day.
The frontrunners for the presidency are the Democratic Progressive party’s (DPP) Lai Ching-te and the Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Hou You-yi. But the campaign has been disrupted by Ko and his Taiwan People’s party (TPP), which he founded in 2019.
Known as “Ko P” or “Professor Ko” to his supporters, Ko, a former surgeon, has built a huge following online. On Instagram, he has 1.1 million followers. The DPP’s Lai has 171,000 while the KMT’s Hou has just over 97,000. Only the outgoing president, Tsai Ing-wen, comes close to matching Ko’s online popularity, with 979,000 Instagram followers. It is a similar story on YouTube, where Ko has more than 1 million subscribers, compared with Tsai’s 466,000. While the DPP frames the vote as a choice between “democracy and autocracy”, and the KMT says it is a matter of “war or peace”, Ko says that the election is a competition between “new politics and old forces”.
Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said that, given the “fairly fluid situation” in Taiwan, Ko could be a significant force in the election.
Depending on who is asked, Ko is a flexible pragmatist or a superficial populist who lacks core values. He positions himself as a “third way” technocrat between the DPP and the KMT. Although he entered politics in 2014 as an independent backed by the DPP, and had supported the Sunflower movement, which protested against a trade deal with China, as mayor of Taipei between 2014 and 2022 he pursued closer economic ties.
But the particulars of his policies seem to be less important than the fact that to many voters, particularly younger people, he feels like a breath of fresh air. Although the more socially conservative KMT is associated with Taiwan’s elite, the more progressive DPP, having been in power for eight years, is also seen by some as being the establishment, rather than a force for change. A quarter of voters are under 40, so Ko’s younger base could be influential.
We have “taken people by surprise”, said Cynthia Wu, a businesswoman turned legislator who is running to be Ko’s vice-president. She said part of his appeal was that “he is not so fussed [about] ideological rhetoric”.
Matt, a 21-year-old computer science student in the southern city of Chiayi, is using his first ever vote to support Ko. Ko “cares more about younger people, so we prefer to give him a chance to be the president”, Matt said, citing Ko’s housing policies.
Although a Taiwanese factchecking centre recently rebuked Ko for claiming to have built “most of” the 21,528 social housing rental units available in Taipei as of August 2023, as mayor of the capital he did oversee the building of more than 6,300 social housing units.
“I want to give this third party a try,” said Matt.
Many other voters are TPP-curious. On Sunday, the party estimated that 60,000 people turned out at Ko’s rally in Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second city, in the south. Although the party’s estimate may be overblown, the pictures of hordes of crowds spilling through the streets surprised analysts.
Ko’s traditional support base is in the north, from his time as a popular independent mayor of Taipei for eight years. “But he has shown in recent days his ability to mobilise in the south,” said Yang. “That could be an indication that he could be a more significant player rather than just flaming out.”
His popularity comes despite his frequent gaffes. In October, he likened cross-strait relations to prostate cancer in a metaphor about the need to co-exist with one’s enemies. He has been criticised for several misogynistic comments during his time in politics, including in 2018 when he said that Taiwanese women who left the house without wearing makeup would scare people. Such comments showed that he was “authentic”, said Wu. “He is willing to admit his mistakes.”
Ko is unlikely to beat Lai or Hou to the presidency. But TPP seats in the legislature could tip the balance of power in any potential coalition. And the oxygen that the raucous campaign has given to his brand is clear. “He will come out of the election with his influence strengthened,” Yang said.
Additional research by Chi Hui Lin
