"Populist" in the following text context

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Taiwan’s main opposition party picked a pro-China populist mayor Monday as its candidate for the 2020 presidential race against an incumbent who often bashes Beijing.

Does "populist" have a derogatory meaning according to the above text?

Solution 1:

No, I don’t think it has a derogatory meaning. This is an AP wire story, and the term is used as a description, not as editorial comment.

What populist means, here, is another question. In current discourse it often refers to appealing to “the people” rather than the “elite power structure.”

But its meaning has changed over time, and it is often used differently by academics and the general public.

This article covers these historical and diverse uses.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism