The Taipei mayoral race has started early, with a dispute over a parasol installation project escalating into a war of words between rival camps — not a good look for either the city government or its challenger.

• Puma Shen, the Democratic Progressive Party's candidate for Taipei mayor, questioned why the parasol project was tendered without a budget allocation, why data was withheld from city councillors, and why a large sum of additional funding was tacked on at the last minute.
• The city government countered that the funding came from the Equalization of Land Rights Fund and that the procedures had been cleared back in April, and called on Shen to first answer "seven questions" about the cooking oil scandal.
• The Department of Urban Development cited the case of Kaohsiung's Cianjhen Fishing Port, where costs rose from NT$30 million to NT$8.1 billion, asking in turn whether a discrepancy approved by the central government counted as a problem.
• The project's completion slipped from summer to winter; the city government said the weld seams failed inspection and the contractor was told to redo the work, holding up the Hsinchu baseball stadium as a cautionary counter-example.

Outlook: Neither side shows any sign of backing down, and the war of words is expected to burn on all the way to the mayoral election.