The Kaohsiung mayoral debate took place on the evening of the 30th, sparking offense and defense. Qu Zhaoxiang, an assistant professor at the Institute of National Development at Chinese Culture University, said that both the blue and green candidates fully demonstrated their individual characteristics in this debate.Democratic Progressive Party Larry Rondeau read the manuscript and read out what he had prepared. This is not a shortcoming, but rather highlights his specialty of following the law and doing everything within a framework. This structure can be law, political parties, factions etc.;Kuomintang Ke Zhiyan, on the other hand, was more on the spot and showed great eloquence with the pace of bringing a new atmosphere to Kaohsiung.
Qu Zhaoxiang said that both candidates achieved the objective of uniting supporters of their respective camps in this debate. In terms of debate performance alone, Ke Zhiyan performed more comprehensively. However, previous research has also shown that winning a debate does not necessarily mean winning the election. Even the level of debate is quite limited in changing voters’ voting intentions, and may only influence the average voter.
Qu Zhaoxiang said that although Kaohsiung’s core base is greener than blue, the southern counties and cities have the highest proportion of average voters, about 20%. Whether these intermediate voters, who have not yet decided to vote, will be swayed by Ke Zhiyan’s performance in the debate will be the focus of the next observation.
