A poll released yesterday showed that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) continues to lead in the presidential race.
Tsai leads with 48.1 percent support, while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) is in a distant second place with 16.3 percent support and People First Party (PFP) presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) has 10.4 percent support, according to the poll, which was commissioned by Taiwan Thinktank and conducted by Trend Survey and Research.
The results suggest that Chu’s replacement of Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as the KMT’s presidential candidate has had little effect on the race, and that Tsai has maintained her hefty lead.
Voters appeared to strongly disapprove of Chu’s decision to run in the presidential election without first resigning from his post as New Taipei City mayor, as the poll showed that 63.5 percent of respondents said that Chu should quit as mayor, and 24.3 percent said he should not.
However, the poll also showed that 47.2 percent of respondents said that Chu’s candidacy would help the KMT in the legislative elections, while 40.1 percent said it would not.
The poll showed that if Soong were to drop out of the presidential campaign, Tsai’s support would increase to 50.9 percent, while Chu’s support would increase to 20 percent.
A cross-analysis of the polling results to investigate the “dump-save” effect for the Jan. 16 vote suggested that the effect is weaker for next year’s election than its historic norm.
The poll showed that if voters are convinced the candidate they support has no chance of winning, 34.3 percent said that they would forgo voting altogether, and 47 percent said they would vote for the candidate they favored anyway.
The poll showed that 69.3 percent of respondents supported legislative candidates who supported changing the law to regulate party assets, while 16.4 percent disapproved.
“In next year’s elections, the pan-green camp is highly likely to gain a majority in the legislature, and dealing with the KMT’s assets by passing a draft political party act would become an important issue,” said Steve Wang (王思為), an assistant professor at Nanhua University’s Institute of European Studies.
The poll also showed that DPP legislative candidates have the highest support rate at 35 percent, while their KMT counterparts trailed with 19 percent. Among third-party candidates, the New Power Party commanded the most support with 4 percent, followed by the PFP’s 2.4 percent approval, independent candidates’ 2 percent, Taiwan Solidarity Union’s 1 percent and the Green Party-Social Democratic Party Alliance’s 0.9 percent, the poll showed.
Republic Party candidates had a 0.8 percent approval rate, while the New Party and Free Taiwan Party both had a 0.1 percent approval, the poll showed.
The poll collected 1,071 effective samples from people aged 20 or older and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
QUICK LOOK: The amendments include stricter recall requirements and Constitutional Court procedures, as well as a big increase in local governments’ budgets Portions of controversial amendments to tighten requirements for recalling officials and Constitutional Court procedures were passed by opposition lawmakers yesterday following clashes between lawmakers in the morning, as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members tried to block Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators from entering the chamber. Parts of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) and Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) passed the third reading yesterday. The legislature was still voting on various amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) as of press time last night, after the session was extended to midnight. Amendments to Article 4
RSS