Former Wellington mayoral candidate Jack Yan says he is endorsing Jo Coughlan in this year’s race.

NEWS RELEASE: 24 August 2016

Mr Yan says Ms Coughlan has a long-term view of Wellington, has a record of working with councillors regardless of their political stripes, and is an independent who is not being financed by an establishment cadre.

‘Jo’s ideas are big-picture ones, as mine were when I ran. She doesn’t focus on the trivial, and she believes in our city leading the way with a future-oriented economy,’ he says.

‘I recognize parallels between what she wants to achieve and what I wanted to,’ Mr Yan adds. ‘Jo sees Wellington as part of a global economy, one of a small club of cities that has a high concentration of tech businesses. She’s not afraid of seeing us compete with the world’s best. That’s the energy that I seek in a candidate, and what I believe my supporters from two campaigns sought, too.’

Mr Yan points to the work that had been done while Ms Coughlan chaired the Council’s Economic Growth Committee, with Wellington’s CBD outpacing Auckland in GDP growth. ‘It’s proof that she was capable of working with a mayor whose politics differ from her own, for the good of Wellington. I see certain other candidates as being too divisive or too wedded to their political ideologies,’ he says.

‘During the 2013 campaign, I asked Jo why she wasn’t running. I said that I wanted to hear her ideas in the mayoral forums, and I’m glad she’s made the choice to go for the job this time.’

Mr Yan chose not to run this year for family reasons.