Do we like them?

Do we like Hou Yu-ih?

Our score: 6 out of 10. A clean record on harm and no court findings, but little that shows him going out on a limb for LGBTQ+ people or the planet.

Hou is a cop-turned-politician. He started as a criminal police officer, rose to head Taiwan's National Police Agency and holds a doctorate in crime prevention and corrections. Reuters reports he joined the KMT in 1975, won New Taipei City's mayoralty and was re-elected in a landslide in late 2022. The KMT then picked him as its 2024 presidential candidate.

The presidential run is where it got messy. He took leave from the mayor's job to campaign, then lost to the DPP's William Lai in January 2024. A week later a Facebook group launched a recall petition, with participants frustrated he had left his post. Hou apologised to residents and promised to “redouble my efforts” for the city.

On the harm check, we found no anti-LGBTQ+ words from him. He did not attend the 2023 Taiwan Pride parade, which Taipei Times noted, while the KMT's youth wing marched and shouted that the party also backed equality. Separately, the city's social welfare department ran a month-long LGBTQIA+ program in 2026 with rainbow flags over the walkways, though that report doesn't mention Hou himself. So it's a cautious, not a hostile, record.

On climate and energy, he used a December 2023 policy presentation to press Lai on his nuclear-free goal and suggested nuclear plants may need longer operating lives. He also argued the DPP's 24 to 25 per cent emissions-cut target for 2030 was unattainable. Climate advocates will read that as foot-dragging, while his supporters will call it realism about energy supply. We found no climate denial in what we read.

His campaign was also combative. In June 2023 his campaign office filed a police report against Lai, accusing him of spreading misinformation about a preschool drugging controversy. That's a partisan accusation, not a finding, and the full report sat behind a paywall, so we can't say how it ended.

The good stuff: Reuters reports that in 1997 he rescued a South African diplomat's family in a hostage case, which earned him a reputation as a “tender tough guy”. As mayor he has pushed a second administrative centre in Sanchong District to balance development, due to open by the end of this year. Honestly, that's about the extent of the verified good deeds we found, so there's not much charity or activism to point to.