Ko wants tycoon to be legislative candidate for his party

Taipei, Sept. 30 (CNA) The chairman of the newly established Taiwan People's Party (TPP) is hoping that tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘) will head the party's slate of legislator-at-large candidates in the coming elections, but Gou's aide said that is unlikely to happen.

"I want more than anything else" for Gou to represent the party, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (郭文哲), who founded the TPP in early August, said Monday, describing him as a "mother hen," or standard-bearer, who could help other TPP candidates win seats in the Legislature next year.

"It would be easier to have a mother hen," said the outspoken Ko, noting that if he himself were to run for the presidency in the 2020 elections, it would improve the TPP's chances of securing more seats in legislative races.

But now that he has decided not to run, "I have to come up with a happy medium," Ko said, referring to Gou as the party's leading candidate if he were willing.

Ko also hoped that Gou, the founder and former chairman of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn globally, could recommend people with financial and economic expertise to serve as TPP candidates for legislator-at-large seats in the Jan. 11 elections.

In response, Gou's aide Tsai Chin-yu (蔡沁瑜) said "it is very unlikely" that Gou will join another political party again to be a legislator-at-large candidate, after having just left one.

He is now enjoying the freedom of not being affiliated with any political party, Tsai said, and to be part of a party again is "not in Gou's present life plans."

Gou made a big push to take part in the presidential primary of the main opposition Kuomintang but ended up losing the primary to Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) in July.

Two months later, on Sept. 12, he resigned from the party.

On Sept. 17, the business tycoon further announced he was giving up any intention to run for the presidency in January 2020, ending two months of speculation that he might make a run for the office as an independent.