The newly elected mayors and county chiefs of Taiwan’s 22 local jurisdictions were sworn in on Thursday.
Newly elected Taipei City mayor, independent Ko Wen-je, said he will work hard to build a better city and a better Taiwan in the next four years. Ko said that the Taipei City Government will become a team with serving the public as its goal.
"The employees of the Taipei City Government do not have to serve any political party or even the mayor. They only need to wholeheartedly serve the people of Taipei City," said Ko.
Meanwhile, Taichung City’s new mayor, Lin Chia-lung of the Democratic Progressive Party, said that he will become “a mayor for the people”. Lin said that he will allow residents to become “the true masters of the city”.
"I will hold to the principles of open governance and listen to the voices of the people. I will make policy decisions based on the people’s opinions," said Lin.
"We will also cooperate with non-government groups to allow residents’ visions for municipal development projects to become reality. We want to make residents the city’s true masters," he said.
Lin said he has already set the goal of making the government’s action and efficiency visible to the public within his first 100 days in office. Lin also requested chief officials in his local government to sign a pledge of clean governance.