Ko Chih-en

Ko Chih-en's public image spans academia, television and politics. A professor of educational psychology at Tamkang University, she won a Golden Bell Award early in her career for the TV program Shijie Zhen Qimiao, served as a KMT at-large legislator from 2016 to 2020, returned to the Legislative Yuan in 2024 as number two on the party's at-large list, and also chairs the KMT's Kaohsiung chapter. What put her on the front line in southern Taiwan was the race for Kaohsiung mayor: in 2022, less than five months after entering the contest, she challenged Chen Chi-mai's re-election bid and lost with nearly 530,000 votes, about 40 percent of the total, and in December 2025 the KMT drafted her again; this time Chen is term-limited, and her opponent is legislator Lai Jui-lung, who won the DPP primary. Apart from a brief period of KMT rule after Han Kuo-yu's 2018 victory, Kaohsiung has been governed by the DPP since 1998, so the way she is seen is bound up with whether the pan-blue camp can break through in a pan-green stronghold. She has framed the race as a showdown with the DPP's New Tide faction and has criticized both Lai Jui-lung and President Lai Ching-te by name. Polls diverge sharply: most show Lai Jui-lung ahead, by margins ranging from less than one percentage point to about 20 points, a few show her in front, and the two camps have accused each other of manipulating surveys. Before the November 28 vote, the key to her standing is whether she can turn high name recognition into trust that reaches across the blue-green divide.