Lai Shyh-bao (; born 20 June 1951) is a Taiwanese engineer and politician currently serving as a member of the Legislative Yuan. A member of the Kuomintang (KMT), he has served on the party's Central Standing Committee and in the National Assembly.
Early life and education Lai was born in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 20, 1951. He graduated from National Cheng Kung University with a B.S. in engineering and earned an M.B.A. from National Chengchi University (NCCU). He later taught business administration at NCCU and chaired the graduate school of business administration there.
Lai completed his graduate studies in the United States at the University of Southern California, where he earned a Master of Science (M.S.) and his Ph.D. in industrial engineering and systems engineering in 1984. His doctoral dissertation, completed under professors G. A. Fleischer and Ewald Heer, was titled, "A generalized replacement model for a robotic system".
Political career From 1999 to 2002, Lai was a New Party legislator. Despite a declaration that he would leave the New Party at the end of 2001 but not join another party, Lai switched affiliations to the Kuomintang in his legislative second term and secured the continued endorsement of the New Party.
Lai was also promoted to increasingly important KMT caucus positions. In April 2005 he was deputy secretary of the caucus. By July, Lai had become caucus whip, a position he held until February 2016. Lai was nominated as the Kuomintang candidate for speaker of the ninth Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party held a majority in the legislature, and elected Su Jia-chyuan as President of the Legislative Yuan. In 2020, Lai was again nominated for the speakership, losing for a second time, to Yu Shyi-kun.
Electoral history
2008 legislative election Eligible voters: 231,411 Total votes cast (Ratio): 146,614 (63.36%) Valid Votes (Ratio): 145,173 (99.02%) Invalid Votes (Ratio): 1,441 (0.98%)
No.CandidatePartyVotesRatioElected1Mei Fong (梅峰)Independent1710.12%2Ren Li Min (任立民) Home Party2340.16%3Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) Democratic Progressive Party38,26126.36%4Lai Shyh-baoKuomintang (New Party Endorsement)104,25771.81%5Shih Mei Yan (史美延)Third Society Party4920.34%6Fang Ying Jyun (方景鈞)Independent2770.19%7Peng Yan Wun (彭渰雯)Green Party Taiwan1,4811.02%
Personal life In July 2024, Lai hit and injured two pedestrians with his car. The incident came about a year after he had made a Facebook post criticizing a Ministry of Transportation policy to fine drivers who do not keep a distance of 3 meters from pedestrians in the crosswalk.
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