Taiwan’s third-party presidential candidate wants to challenge the political establishment. But can he win?

On a sweltering July day outside of Taipei’s presidential office building, thousands of Taiwanese gathered to attend what was billed as a nonpartisan rally demanding fair and affordable housing for Taiwan’s young people. Of all the presidential candidates at the rally with an eye on next year’s election, the one that clearly had a grip on the crowd was Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲 Kē Wénzhé).

Dressed in white — a color invoked in past social movements, and now the adopted color of the TPP — the attendees chanted for “Ko P” as he addressed them.

“Taiwan has already had three party rotations, but are we really better off than before?” Ko said to cheers. “Housing prices are higher and higher, scams are more and more frequent, the judiciary is less and less trusted by the people.”

Since Taiwan’s first democratic presidential elections in 1996, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) have held the country’s leadership, rotating the country’s top position in hard-fought elections. The DPP, known for its trademark green coloring, emphasizes Taiwanese identity and sovereignty; the KMT, which is identified with blue, favors closer ties with Beijing.

But dissatisfaction with the political establishment has been brewing for nearly a decade in Taiwan, giving way to a possible third choice in Ko and his TPP. According to most polls, Ko has remained the second-most-popular candidate through June and July, trailing the DPP’s Lai Ching-te (賴清德 Lài Qīngdé) but maintaining a significant lead over the KMT’s Hou You-ih (侯友宜 Hóu Yǒuyí). In July, 24% of people said they would cast a vote for Ko (a slight decline since June), while 35% chose the DPP’s Lai and 20% chose the KMT’s Hou, according to MyFormosa.

Regardless of the polling, Ko — a former surgeon, professor, and mayor of Taipei — has made an early impression on Taiwan’s 2024 presidential race. As a “third force” party presidential candidate, he has positioned himself as someone who can heal Taiwan’s sharp political divide by leading with “pragmatism and professionalism,” as opposed to rival candidates who frame the election as a choice between war and peace or autocracy and democracy. A strong social media presence and charismatic personality — Ko has sung and danced at a sold-out fundraiser concert and compared the 1992 consensus to “excrement” at a Johns Hopkins University event — has helped that message find footing among Taiwan’s younger generation, which is his largest support base.

His critics view him differently, as a populist and an opportunist in part due to his anti-establishment messaging and political flip-flopping. He has been severely criticized for his frequent media gaffes, such as, recently, his comments about the “miserable” lives of people in the south, and the use of the slogan “Vote white, vote right” — “white” is the color of the TPP, but the phrasing is nonetheless unfortunate.

“[Ko] is not a typical politician,” said Wu Tung-chou (吳東州 Wú Dōngzhōu), 34, who works at a real estate company in New Taipei City. Wu and his coworker, Li An-teng (李安登 Lǐ Āndēng), also 34, have never voted in an election before. But they intend to vote for Ko this January, believing he will keep promises on domestic issues that impact them directly — like high housing prices and low wages — compared with the previous administration.

“He gives us the feeling that he is the kind of person who will actually get things done,” Wu said.

Who is Ko Wen-je?

Before running for mayor in 2014, Ko was a doctor at National Taiwan University Hospital and a professor at the university’s College of Medicine, earning him the popular nickname “Ko P,” i.e., Professor Ko. Though he always positioned himself as a candidate beyond blue and green, Ko once described himself as “dark green” and, in 2014, won the Taipei mayoral election with support from the DPP, which did not run a candidate that year.

But Ko’s political leanings shifted toward blue throughout his tenure as mayor. Most notably, he held regular exchanges with Shanghai as Taipei’s “twin city,” where he has been criticized for saying numerous times that both sides of the strait are “one family.”

Lev Nachman, a political scientist at Taipei’s National Chengchi University, said the focus of young voters has shifted in the last decade. “To me, it seems like those who support Ko and those who are into the whole ‘green, blue both suck equally,’ don’t really have a whole lot of vocal stances on Taiwanese identity or Taiwan’s status,” Nachman said. “They really are just focused on being radically opposed to blue-green politics.”

Ko has also said that he supports building a bridge between the Taiwanese island of Kinmen and Xiamen, the Chinese city which lies just 10 kilometers away, and has expressed support for the controversial Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement, which gave rise to the Sunflower Movement in 2014. Many of the politicians who joined Ko’s TPP, which he formed in 2019 and is now Taiwan’s third-largest political party, hailed initially from the KMT.

On the campaign trail, Ko has said that maintaining the status quo is the best solution and that his strategy with China would be one of “deterrence and cooperation,” using the “five dos” of mutual action he established as mayor: to know, understand, respect, cooperate with, and forgive each other.

Ko’s past engagements with China have led some to speculate that China may be comfortable working with Ko. “The starting point of Ko’s basic thinking is Taiwanese identity. So China may think this is something they cannot trust, but at least they can use,” says Ogasawara Yoshiyuki, a professor emeritus at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies who has been observing Taiwan’s elections for 30 years. “What Beijing wants is to have a new atmosphere where they can press unification for Taiwanese society, [and] that after next January, Taiwanese politics would enter into confusion. And Ko Wen-je, even if he is elected, he would be facing a minority government, and it is inevitable that Taiwanese politics would enter a very confusing period.”

The road ahead for Ko and Taiwan’s “third force” parties

While Ko Wen-je’s charismatic personality has attracted first-time voters like Li and Wu, his tendency to speak freely has led to frequent gaffes and may be costing him support — especially from women. Earlier this month, the Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union accused the TPP of “sexualizing and objectifying female flight attendants” at a campaign event that featured a dance by women in flight attendants’ outfits. Spokespeople for Ko’s campaign defended the performance.

At the July housing rally, a woman held a placard listing “Ko Wen-je’s discriminatory statements against women” (for example, “Chen Ju is a fatter Han Kuo-yu,” and equating gynecology to “making a living between women’s legs”). Rally co-organizer and internet celebrity Chen Chih-han (陳之漢 Chén Zhīhàn) derided the woman online, which was in turn condemned by the DPP.

Polling has shown wide gender gaps among Ko Wen-je’s supporters, with support from women ages 30-39 dropping by more than 11% in July, according to a survey by Ling Media.

Zoe Lee (李菁琪 Lǐ Jīngqí), chair of Taiwan’s Green Party, a left-leaning third force party with plans to nominate candidates to the Legislative Yuan this year, says Taiwan’s recent #MeToo wave may have contributed to the gender disparity in Ko’s support base.

“In the past few years, a lot of people criticize and say we are too politically correct,” Lee says. “A lot of people, especially dudes, heterosexual men, feel not as masculine as before. And Ko Wen-je is like their hero. For those people, he has become the role model, and sadly, that’s a majority in Taiwan.”

Despite frequent rumors of alliances between Ko and Hou or Foxconn founder Terry Gou (郭台銘 Guō Táimíng), Ko has said that he would remain in the race “until the end,” but it remains unclear whether his current support could convert into real votes in January. China is likely to become more relevant in the election in the coming months, and potential election interference from the mainland could drive voters back toward conventional voting habits.

But Ko has shaken up the 2024 race and exposed a renewed hunger for something more than blue and green. Even if he doesn’t win, Ogasawara predicts his party could impact the future of Taiwanese politics, depending on how it does in the legislature.

“I think the voting rates will be lower than before,” said Lee of the Green Party, “because people are tired of both DPP or KMT, and people are not willing to vote. But that will be the chance for us, for those third parties, because pro-DPP people who like Tsai probably don’t like Lai Ching-te. Pro-KMT people probably don’t like Hou You-ih. Now they have alternative solutions.”