{"id":61081,"date":"2024-01-10T19:54:36","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T10:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/jan\/10\/ko-wen-je-the-provocative-outsider-who-could-tip-taiwan-election-balance"},"modified":"2024-01-10T19:54:36","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T10:54:36","slug":"ko-wen-je-the-provocative-outsider-who-could-tip-taiwan-election-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=61081","title":{"rendered":"Ko Wen-je: the provocative outsider who could tip Taiwan election balance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some say he lacks values, but the gaffe-prone former mayor is big online and many voters see him as a breath of fresh air <\/p>\n<p>His off-colour jokes, provocative streak and relative lack of political experience make Ko Wen-je the wildcard choice for this weekend\u2019s closely watched presidential elections in Taiwan. But with an impressive turnout at recent rallies and a huge following on social media, there are signs that the outsider may have been underestimated.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/jan\/08\/taiwan-election-who-candidates-what-stake\">The vote<\/a> on Saturday, in which 19 million Taiwanese will choose their next president, is one of the most <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2024\/jan\/05\/the-guardian-view-on-taiwans-elections-applaud-democracy-in-action\">closely contested races<\/a> since the self-governing island first held elections in 1996. Legislative elections, which are looking just as uncertain, will be held on the same day.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/jan\/10\/ko-wen-je-the-provocative-outsider-who-could-tip-taiwan-election-balance\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some say he lacks values, but the gaffe-prone former mayor is big online and many voters see him as a breath of fresh air His off-colour jokes, provocative streak and relative lack of political experience make Ko Wen-je the wildcard choice for this wee&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3586,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,74,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-taiwan","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61082,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61081\/revisions\/61082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}