A non-traditional candidate resonates with Taiwan’s youth ahead of Saturday’s presidential election

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — With Taiwan’s high-stakes presidential election just days away, a nonconformist candidate has been resonating with the island’s youth, seemingly more concerned with the dearth of good jobs and affordable housing than the looming threat from China.

First-time voters are overwhelmingly drawn to Ko Wen-je, an outspoken surgeon-turned-politician who previously served as the mayor of Taipei, the island’s capital.

The 64-year-old has emerged as the third most popular candidate ahead of Saturday’s vote, behind those from Taiwan’s traditional opposing parties — the governing Democratic Progressive Party and the main opposition Nationalists, known as the Kuomintang or KMT.

The DPP and the KMT have dominated Taiwan’s politics for decades and have largely taken turns governing since the 1990s, after decades of martial law following Taiwan’s 1949 civil war split from China.

Beijing still claims Taiwan as its territory and threatens to take control over it by force, if necessary. In the face of that pressure, DPP has positioned itself as more independence-leaning while KMT has traditionally favored closer ties with Beijing.

Ko, meanwhile, has promoted himself as the alternative, seeking middle ground and advocating patience with China. He founded the Taiwan People’s Party, or TPP, in 2019 and talks more economy and pragmatic issues, including the cost and quality of education.

In a survey of its undergraduate students published last month, Soochow University in Taipei found that 33.9% of the respondents said they intended to vote for Ko, while 22.1% preferred William Lai, the DPP candidate and Taiwan’s vice president who is seen as the overall front-runner in the vote. About 5% favored KMT candidate Hou Yu-ih. The