Repeated heavy rain has flooded parts of Kaohsiung again, and the fight over who is to blame is now a campaign issue — bad news for residents along the Dianbao River who have lived with flooding for years.

• Legislator Ko Chih-en, the KMT's candidate for Kaohsiung mayor, brought former interior minister and flood-control expert Lee Hong-yuan to inspect the flooded Dianbao River area.
• Ko said the point is not to attack southern Taiwan but to review what went wrong, a message aimed at President Lai Ching-te.
• Lee said Kaohsiung has spent a lot on flood control, and the real question is whether the money went where it was needed.
• He pointed to uneven river widths, overlapping authority between agencies, and unclear responsibility for upstream water, holding ponds, tides, and floodgates.
• His fix: the central government should take charge of coordinating with the city, and someone must actually carry the work out, not just budget for it.

Outlook: Flooding is set to become a central line of attack in the Kaohsiung mayoral race, with pressure building on both the city and the central government to show results before the next big storm.