【明報專訊】TAIWAN will go to the polls in the coming Saturday's "nine-in-one" elections. Drawing the most attention is the mayoral elections in the six special municipalities — Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, which are commonly known as the "six capitals". And of the six races, it is that in Kaohsiung, a southern city as well as a stronghold of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), that is the most gripping. Han Kuo-yu, the underdog candidate from the Kuomintang (KMT) parachuted into the race, has enjoyed rising popularity on the strength of his alternative yet friendly image, so much so that he has become a new political idol across Taiwan. Now he is ahead of his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opponent in opinion surveys. Whatever the election results, the "Han wave" he has triggered will go down in history as the most peculiar political phenomenon in Taiwan in the year 2018.