Jiang Wanan and Shen Boyang stalled in the debate! No consensus was reached in today's talks, "key differences" exposed

TVBS and Sanli co-organized the Taipei Mayor's Debate, and the first pre-meeting meeting between the Chiang Wanan and Shen Boyang camps was blocked due to disputes over the venue.

[Reporter Fu Ming Kün/Report from Taipei] The smoke of the Taipei mayoral election is getting thicker. TVBS and Sanli TV announced yesterday that they will co-host the televised debate for Taipei mayoral candidates, and have extended invitations to KMT candidate Chiang Wanan and DPP candidate Shen Boyang. The two TV stations invited representatives from both camps this afternoon to discuss the debate process, program format and specific dates. However, the two sides encountered obstacles in their first meeting.

Earlier, TVBS stated that a pre-conference meeting will be held this afternoon (12th). The two TV stations will invite representatives from the Jiang Wanan and Shen Boyang camps to attend the meeting to discuss the process and details of the debate. Both camps are optimistic that the two TV stations will jointly host a televised debate, but they have not yet reached a consensus because some issues are still unresolved. Both camps and the two TV stations agreed to hold a second meeting as soon as possible to continue the debate.

The Shen Boyang camp advocates clarifying the general debate sessions first to facilitate planning of the topics and program rhythm for each session.

In today's meeting, representatives from the Shen camp asked the Chiang camp to confirm how many debates they would hold in total. The Shen camp believes that before discussing the details of this debate, it must first confirm how many debates the Chiang camp will hold? Only in this way can they plan which topics will be debated in different debates. If the Chiang camp does not respond to this, they will not even be able to confirm the date of the first debate.

Jiang Wanan’s camp advocates respecting the organizer’s pre-plan and reaching a consensus on the details of the first debate.

In this regard, representatives of the Chiang camp said that since today's meeting was invited by two television stations, they should respect the organizers and first discuss the details of the first debate and make a resolution. The Chiang camp also stated that it fully respects and has no objections to the organizer’s plans, including the proposed date, duration of the debate, debate process, cross-examination session, media questioning procedures, etc. They also believe that the professional capabilities of the two TV stations will ensure that the debate will be successfully held. The Chiang camp emphasized that they did not set any preconditions for the debate, but believed that the time and implementation details of the first debate should be confirmed and held before other issues can be discussed.

Since the two camps could not reach a consensus on this issue, more than an hour into the meeting, they decided to bring the issue back to their own camp for discussion. All parties also expressed their hope to agree on the next meeting time as soon as possible and determine the relevant procedures for this debate as soon as possible, so as to provide all voters who are concerned about the Taipei mayoral election with the most abundant information.