Lai Ching-te

Who is William Ching-te Lai, the Liberal Candidate in the Upcoming Presidential Election of Taiwan? In Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election, the ruling liberal Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has nominated the current Vice President William Ching-te Lai as their candidate. Lai has had a remarkable political career that included both triumphs and controversies. While his adversaries will mainly focus on his previous stance on Taiwan Independence, his real challenge might be to get traditional DPP voters on board: women, young people and the queer community. The next Presidential election of Taiwan is scheduled for January 2024. Having served two consecutive terms, the current leader, Tsai Ing-wen, will not be permitted to run again. On April 12th, 2023, the ruling liberal party DPP,announced their candidate for the presidential race: William Ching-te Lai, the current Vice President. But who is he? A senior DPP politician, the 63 year old Lai has achieved notable accomplishments and has faced challenges throughout his career. Born in what is now New Taipei City, Lai was a physician before his career took an unexpected turn. Starting from 1994, Lai actively engaged in politics, supporting the former Minister of Justice, Ding-nan Chen, who inspired Lai to run for campaign. In 1996, Lai chose Tainan, where he worked as a doctor, to begin his political journey. In the following years, Lai served as a legislator representing Tainan in the Legislative Yuanfor several terms before he was elected in 2010 as the mayor of the city. In 2014, Lai secured a remarkable reelection victory with nearly 73 percent of the votes —an unprecedented margin in the history of local elections in Taiwan. Given his high level of support and demonstrated capabilities, Lai was appointed by President Tsai in 2017 as the Premier. His tenure was not without controversy. The amendment of the Labor Law during his first year sparked a series of protests . In the center of the controversy was a comment of Lai’s urging workers to consider longer working hours as "doing good deeds", which quickly became a source of mockery among young people. The Law reform included several controversial changes , including an increase in the allowable overtime hours from 46 hours per month to 138 hours over a three-month period; and lifting restrictions for certain industries, enabling employers to require their workers to remain on duty for up to 12 consecutive days without a day off. Acknowledging the negative impacts this legal reform had caused, Lai took responsibility for the DPP's substantial defeat in the 2018 local election and resigned from the cabinet. It also sparked criticism when Lai, a Harvard-educated physician, made a remark that attributed the spread of HIV to the gay community. The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) swiftly clarified that the transmission of HIV is primarily related to insecure sexual interactions and is independent of individuals' sexuality. The controversiescoincided with his registration as a presidential candidate for the 2020 election, challenging the incumbent Tsai Ing-wen. But with his more conservative comments on record and a generally less progressive image as such, Lai was not very popular among young and female DPP supporters, resulting in his loss in the primary competition to Tsai for the 2020 presidential candidacy. Lai was then invited to be Tsai’s running mate, which he accepted. In light of geopolitical concerns, the cross-straits tension and Taiwan has become a greater focus of democracies in the past year. As Lai embarks on his campaign journey for the presidential election, questions have been raised by foreign media regarding his stance on Taiwan's national status and, most importantly, how cross-strait relations would unfold if Lai becomes the next President of Taiwan. Lai, the then Premier of Taiwan, made headlines in 2017 by describing himself as "without a doubt a politician who supports Taiwanese indepen