....and it's a three-way in Taipei

A winery outside Fengyuan

Yup. It's official. Pasuya Yao is now the DPP candidate for Taipei mayor. I was scared it might be someone who had some possibility of winning, but Yao will help current independent Mayor Ko Wen-je. Focus Taiwan reports:

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Wednesday nominated Pasuya Yao (姚文智) to run for Taipei mayor, making him the third prominent candidate in the election.

...

A survey released May 22 by Taiwan Brain Trust showed Yao with 13.8 percent support in a possible three-way race against Ko (39.4 percent) and Ting (33.5 percent).

Another recent poll, conducted by Shih Hsin University, indicated a similar level of public support for Yao at 13. 5 percent, while Ko and Ting were neck and neck with 29 percent and 29.1 percent, respectively.

Among voters aged 20-29, Ko has a strong lead of 55.6 percent, while Ting and Yao are trailing with 18.2 percent and 0 percent, respectively, according to the university poll.

In the young bracket... Yao has 0 percent support. That's right, the DPP has lost the young, at least in Taipei, with this candidate.

In other words, Yao is an excellent choice: Ko has strong support among the young, so by picking Yao, the DPP has boosted Ko's chance to win. The DPP protest votes that had supported Ting will switch to Yao, Yao does not much threaten Ko's chance to win, and the DPP city councilors will have a candidate they can parade around to gather DPP votes to themselves. Win-win.

This means that since Yao is little threat to win or drag Ko down much, the DPP will not need to do a "dump Yao to save Ko" vote.

Note that Ko's vice mayor is DPP and the DPP is letting him stay on. He will attempt the difficult trick of appearing colorless while being green, but you know colorless green ideologues sneak spuriously. What if Ko wins and then steps down in 2019 to run in 2020? The Deputy Mayor will still be the same fellow -- he will move into Ko's spot, and Taipei will become run by the DPP. Ko's power base will fall into his opponent's hands. This means that Ko has to get rid of this mayor before he can run for President.

But I don't think he plans to run in 2020.

Yao's presence in this race will mean six months of comedy gold for this blogger. As a bonus, Annette Lu has taken her ball and gone home too.

Two pieces in the Taipei Times today signaled the continued swing of the DPP to the right. Both were on the gay marriage issue. One writer accused the DPP of retreating from progressive politics...

Most people missed the news: In the middle of last month, the New Power Party (NPP) caucus proposed a motion to change the legislative agenda, urging the Legislative Yuan to pass the second and final readings of draft amendments to the Civil Code to legalize same-sex marriage as soon as possible.

However, with only the support of NPP lawmakers, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Jason Hsu (許毓仁), the motion was voted down by a wide margin.

Most of the lawmakers who voted against the motion were DPP legislators, while the KMT boycotted the vote. Since a legislative committee passed the first reading of the marriage equality act in late 2016, the legislative process has been constantly delayed.

DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), who initiated the bill, even voted against the motion, blocking her own bill from a review.

The other piece added more...

On May 11, the New Power Party proposed passing a draft bill on marriage equality in the legislature, but the proposal was blocked by the DPP.

When asked about the bill during a radio interview, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that the party would not deal with the issue before the year-end elections.

Gay marriage will not be an issue before the Nov elections. Hopefully the DPP will shove a bill through right after them so there is a year to get used to the idea before the next presidential election.

ADDED: Taipei Times on the Taipei election
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Daily Links:

• Eigerlaw tweeted:

  Need help understanding recent #Taiwan #labor law amendments? Eiger's @Michael_Eiger, Jeffrey LIEN, and Nathan SNYDER will sort things out for you at upcoming @DE_Taiwan seminar (in English) June 19; More info/sign up: http://www.taiwan.ahk.de/events/event-calendar/event-details/events/training-programme-taiwan-2018-seminar-matching-work-rules-to-labor-laws-in-taiwan/?cHash=0fdffb3a727328c6f31a3be1e1fca802

• Frozen Garlic blogs in majestic anger at the CEC for protecting incumbents and drawing wildly unequal voting districts. Then sees the same thing in Hsinchu.
• Richard Bush at Brookings on why the new AIT office in Taiwan is driving China to heighten tensions with the US. Well, he didn't put it that way, but you know how it is... Cole observes wryly that the new compound will not derail US-China relations. But the best thing on it is Chris Horton's piece in the NYTimes: US gives Ties a $250 million upgrade. It was a fortunate day when Horton landed on our shores.
• Lots of firms giving raises
• Times of London on why Taiwan is so different from China

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