Huang Kuo-chang

Huang Kuo-chang is one of the most controversial, and hardest to ignore, figures in Taiwanese politics. He rose to prominence as an Academia Sinica legal scholar and a leading figure of the Sunflower Movement, co-founded the New Power Party and served as its first chairman, won a legislative seat in New Taipei, switched to the Taiwan People's Party in 2023 and became its caucus whip in 2024; in a legislature where neither the KMT nor the DPP has a majority and the TPP's eight seats make it the pivotal minority, his sharp questioning made him one of the DPP government's most prominent critics. Supporters see him as a fearless, outspoken watchdog, while critics argue that he has abandoned his earlier reformist image and drawn ever closer to the KMT. When founding chairman Ko Wen-je stepped down in 2025 over the Core Pacific City case, Huang took over the party leadership, and in February 2026 he resigned his legislative seat under the party's "two-year clause." In March this year Ko was sentenced at first instance to 17 years in prison, and the TPP quickly rallied supporters on Ketagalan Boulevard, where Huang led the crowd from the stage in chants of "fight to the end"; in April he lost the KMT–TPP unity poll for the New Taipei mayoral nomination to Lee Shu-chuan and shifted his focus to campaigning for candidates nationwide, and in October he launched a livestream show, "Minzhong You Ben 4," whose first guest was Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen. His standing is now closely bound to the fate of KMT–TPP cooperation: in early September, KMT–TPP talks over the Zhubei mayoral race broke down and the TPP announced that its Hsinchu County races would no longer be bound by the cooperation agreement, while Huang stressed that the breakdown applied only to Hsinchu County and worked to keep the partnership intact elsewhere. The November 28 results will test whether, with Ko's case still unresolved, he can prove that the TPP still has a reason to exist as a third force.