TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — During a press conference held on Sunday (Aug. 28), former Taipei Deputy Mayor Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) announced her bid for Taipei mayor.

Huang, having tendered her resignation on Friday (Aug. 26), attended events around Taipei on her last day as deputy mayor,

At the press conference, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said Huang is the “best choice” to extend the “change in political culture” that he and his team started during his campaign in 2014. He praised Huang for her diligence and her dedication, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2021, saying: “She does not need to prove that she can be a good mayor, she already can be a good mayor.”

Huang said at the event that despite being late in announcing her campaign, she believes she is the candidate to begin preparing for the bid the earliest. She recalled surviving a severe illness that sent her to an intensive care unit, after which she began “living every day like it’s the last.”

“My goal is to live conscientiously and work with all my might,” she said. “My life’s work is to build a clean, transparent, fair, and just Taipei.”

Another focus of Huang’s campaign is to “break through the ugly fight between blue and green,” which refers to Taiwan’s two-party system traditionally dominated by the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). She said the current Taipei City Government is run by a coalition with team members whose efforts to make the city better transcend parties, and that Taipei’s politics should not revert to its old form.

Huang concluded by saying she and her team will announce their policies during a press conference on Thursday (Sept. 1).

Huang’s slogan for the campaign, “Taipei Keep Going,” highlights a theme of continuity. The word “keep” is stylized as “K33P,” featuring Ko’s nickname “KP” and Huang’s first name “Shan-shan,” which sounds like the Mandarin pronunciation for “three three.”

Huang and the Taipei City Government team pose for a group photo. (CNA photo)