Taiwan's former Taipei mayor and 2024 presidential candidate Ko Wen-je leaves the Taipei District Court on March 26.I-HWA CHENG/AFP/Getty Images
Ko Wen-je, the former mayor of Taipei and founder of the upstart Taiwan People’s Party, was sentenced to 17 years in prison Thursday for bribery, capping a dramatic downfall for a man who once seemed poised to become the island’s president.
A former medical professor and transplant surgeon, Mr. Ko founded the TPP in 2019 and quickly established it as a major third force in Taiwanese politics. In the run up to the 2024 presidential election, Mr. Ko was riding high in the polls, holding mass rallies around the country and winning over younger voters by focusing on affordability and housing.
Though he ultimately came up short, with Democratic Progressive Party candidate William Lai securing 40 per cent of the three-way vote, Mr. Ko was able to claim credit for breaking the decades-long duopoly of the DPP and the Kuomintang, or KMT, and his party won enough legislative seats to play kingmaker and frustrate Mr. Lai’s agenda in the years since.
Two Liberal MPs cut Taiwan trip short ahead of Carney’s China visit
Mr. Ko has not been able to enjoy that success however. In August, 2024, the 66-year-old was arrested and subsequently indicted on bribery and corruption charges relating to a real estate project during his second term as mayor of Taipei, from 2018 to 2022.
Maintaining his innocence, Mr. Ko resigned as TPP leader to fight the case, with tens of thousands of his supporters rallying in Taipei to protest what they called a politically motivated prosecution.
On Thursday, a court in the Taiwanese capital found Mr. Ko guilty and sentenced him to 17 years in prison for bribery, misappropriation of public funds and breach of trust. The court also deprived him of his civil rights for six years.
While Mr. Ko intends to appeal, Thursday’s decision all but rules him out as a candidate in 2028’s presidential election, as Taiwanese election law bars candidates who have been jailed for more than 10 years, deprived of their civil rights or convicted of corruption, all of which could apply to Mr. Ko.
Lev Nachman, a professor of political science at National Taiwan University, said while it is “not unheard of” for a harsh sentence like that which Mr. Ko received to be appealed down to nothing, “it’s going to be a big uphill battle for him not to go to jail.”
“Taking him out of the running to be president is a very big deal, as he had a strong case to be either the candidate for president or vice-president” on a combined KMT-TPP ticket in 2028, Prof. Nachman said. Such a ticket would have the best bet to end the DPP’s decade in power, after a similar deal fell apart in the run-up to the 2024 election.
While DPP supporters have celebrated Mr. Ko’s downfall, Prof. Nachman said it would be a mistake to count his party out with him.
“The TPP is not just going to disappear,” he said. “This ruling is not going cause Ko’s very fiery, passionate base of support to roll over and go away now, if anything I expect them to be even more mobilized.”
Mr. Ko’s successor as TPP leader, Huang Kuo-chang, said the ruling had left him “incredulous” and said his party would fight not only for Mr. Ko’s innocence, “but also to save the judiciary from becoming the DPP’s plaything.”
“Even in the midst of rain, we will surely see the sun shine again,” Mr. Huang wrote on social media.
Prof. Nachman said Mr. Huang is poised to be a major political player, and all eyes will be on whether he can lead the TPP to a strong performance in local elections later this year. The DPP is expected to perform poorly in those polls – as incumbent parties generally do – but just how poorly could affect how Mr. Lai approaches the remainder of his first term.
“The national election begins as soon as the local elections are over,” Prof. Nachman said. “TPP voters are lost to the DPP right now and this is only going to cement that.”
One issue that does not come up in local elections, but does play into national politics, often to the DPP’s advantage, is China. Both the KMT and TPP have often criticized Mr. Lai for playing up the alleged threat from Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its territory and has never ruled out annexing the island by force.
U.S. reaches trade deal with Taiwan to lower tariffs
Last year, the DPP mounted a massive recall drive to try and wrest control of the legislature, mostly targeting KMT members seen as being pro-unification or soft on China. This ended in an embarrassing failure for the ruling party however, with not a single legislator recalled.
Since then, the KMT-TPP majority has repeatedly held up an ambitious defence budget put forward by Mr. Lai, stymying efforts by Taipei to buy new U.S. arms it says are vital to defend against any future Chinese invasion.
Mr. Lai has previously repeated U.S. predictions that such an invasion could come as soon as 2027, but an updated assessment by the U.S. intelligence community this month said such a timeframe was unlikely, in part due to continuing purges in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
“China, despite its threat to use force to compel unification if necessary and to counter what it sees as a U.S. attempt to use Taiwan to undermine China’s rise, prefers to achieve unification without the use of force, if possible,” the report said.
“Chinese leaders do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027, nor do they have a fixed timeline for achieving unification.”