Ko Wen-je

Ko Wen-je (; born 6 August 1959; also known by his nickname, Ko P) is a Taiwanese politician and physician who served as the mayor of Taipei from 2014 to 2022. He has been the chairman of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) since 2019. Before becoming mayor, he was a doctor at National Taiwan University Hospital. He was also a professor at National Taiwan University College of Medicine, and specialized in fields including trauma, intensive care, organ transplant, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and artificial organs. Due to his profession, he has been nicknamed Ko P or KP (which stands for Professor Ko, and is how he is customarily referred to within National Taiwan University). Ko was responsible for standardising organ transplant procedures in Taiwan, and was the first physician to bring ECMO to Taiwan. Apart from his practice, Ko is known for his numerous media appearances and interviews as a social and political commentator. In the 2014 Taipei Mayoral Election, Ko ran as an independent candidate. He beat Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Pasuya Yao in the unofficial primary, gaining support from the DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU). Ko won the election with 853,983 votes, becoming the first physician mayor of the city since the introduction of direct election to the office. On 20 May 2023, Ko became the official nominee of the TPP for the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election. He is seen as the “third way” between DPP and Kuomintang (KMT), the two parties that have traditionally dominated Taiwan's political landscape. Having been consistently placed at 2nd behind TPP's Lai Ching-te in polls, he is a serious contender for the election, despite mostly receiving inadequate attention in Western discourses.