The likelihood of Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) winning the Greater Kaohsiung mayoral election surged dramatically just one day after he said he was interested in running as an independent in the November election, a university prediction center said yesterday.
Prediction markets are speculative exchanges, with the value of an asset meant to reflect the likelihood of a future event. Members can tender virtual bids on events, with the bidding price reflecting the probability.
National Chengchi University’s Prediction Market Center said that on a scale of NT$0 to NT$100, the average price of an “other candidate” grew from NT$6.29 on Aug. 2 to NT$18.57 yesterday after Yang, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member, said he had made up his mind to throw his hat in the ring — although he has not made a formal announcement.
If Yang follows through, his entry would turn the race into a three-way contest with DPP Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順).
In the “other candidate” contract, the value as of yesterday for Chen, Yang and Huang were NT$56.7, NT$33.6 and NT$16.9 respectively.
Center director Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) attributed the growth to the “Yang Chiu-hsing effect.”
Yang lost the DPP primary to Chen in early May.
Meanwhile, a poll released by the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that Chen has 52 percent support against Huang’s 19 percent among Greater Kaohsiung voters.
The survey, in which 852 residents of Kaohsiung City and county were interviewed to assess their voting intention in the Nov. 27 special municipality elections, was conducted on Tuesday night, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent.
The poll shows Chen would still be the front runner in a three-way race with 44 percent of the vote, followed by Yang with 23 percent and Huang with 13 percent. Nineteen percent of respondents were undecided.
The poll result appeared to support DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen’s (吳乃仁) comments yesterday that regardless of Yang’s decision, the DPP still expected a win.
However, Wu also hinted at just how far the DPP has gone in its attempts to prevent a three-way race from taking place.
“Just about every party heavyweight has recently paid Yang a visit,” he said, ticking off the names of DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Taipei mayoral candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌).
Tsai will travel south to meet with Yang today in a last-ditch attempt to dissuade him from launching his own bid.
Speaking in a meeting with the DPP’s Central Standing Committee yesterday, Tsai vowed that the party would not give up on its efforts to prevent Yang from leaving the party that he has been a part of for the last 30 years.
“The DPP will do all that it can to ensure that Yang stays in the party,” she said, adding that the party believed that his departure was not a done deal because the commissioner had yet to make a formal announcement.
DPP officials have also said that despite Yang’s remarks about defecting from the party, he had yet to say when he would make a formal announcement to run.
“We all still hope that he is only playing one big joke on us,” said Hsieh, a former Kaohsiung mayor.
However, he said that Yang’s insistence on leaving the DPP was growing stronger by the day.
“But of course nothing is certain,” he said.
He also urged the public to avoid speculating on how Yang’s departure would impact the DPP’s election prospects in Kaohsiung, saying: “We shouldn’t be addressing his funeral before the man is even dead.”
Yang appeared to be unfazed yesterday. Asked for comment during a visit to the county’s Dashu Township (大樹), Yang said he would not change his mind and urged the party not to make things difficult for him.
“Since I’ve made up my mind, I will go for it,” he said. “Please understand the difficult decision I made.”
Yang said he was willing to accept criticism from all sides.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS