Recent polls conducted by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the United Daily News measuring support for the Taipei County commissioner candidates have showed vastly different predictions between the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). But political analysts said that the surveys suggest that yet-to-be-revealed campaign strategies will still play an important part for the two candidates.
A survey conducted by the United Daily News on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 and released last Wednesday found that the KMT candidate for Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) had a substantial lead over the DPP's Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) -- with Chou polling 42 percent while Luo obtained only 22 percent.
However, according to the latest poll conducted by the DPP's Survey Center on Oct. 27 which was released on Saturday, Luo and Chou are running neck and neck, with 38.7 percent of those questioned supporting Chou and 35.8 percent stumping for Luo.
The fact that the two polls were conducted so close to each other and yet showed such a great discrepancy has confused many people. Luo's camp even suggested that the United Daily News faked their survey in order to damage the Luo camp's morale. Chou's camp declined to comment on the two surveys.
Chiang Ming-chin (江岷欽), a professor of public administration at Taipei University, said "I think that polls conducted by political parties unavoidably favor their candidates, therefore I don't think those polls are a real reflection of the situation."
Chiang served as legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng's (王金平) campaign strategist when Wang ran for the KMT chairmanship.
But Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), a political analyst and research fellow at Academia Sinica's Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, considered the DPP's survey to be much closer to reality.
Hsu said that Luo and Chou are both strong candidates, but as the voting structure of Taipei County indicates that the number of pan-blue supporters is larger than pan-green supporters, Luo has been behind Chou from the very beginning of the campaign.
Although the DPP administration has been embroiled in a series of scandals over the past month and has been tainted by a succession of negative news articles, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has not gained that much more support, Hsu said.
"If you scrutinize the recent polls conducted by the different centers, you would find that there has not been much change in the level of Chou's support," Hsu said. "Chou's support represents the basic level of pan-blue support in Taipei County. But people who want to win this election have to possess the ability to attract the neutral voters."
Hsu pointed out that so far DPP supporters have yet to show their support for Luo's campaign, which is also why Luo has so far been unable to surpass Chou.
"If Luo can stir DPP supporters and change the focus of the campaign from the central government to the local government and keep talking about the New DPP movement, then he might have a better chance of winning," Hsu said.
Hsu also warned the pan-blue camp not to overestimate the effect of the negative news that has been bothering the DPP administration over the past month.
"The pan-blue camp might think that the DPP have already lost next month's elections because of the bombardment of bad news on the TV," Hsu said. "Negative news will make an impact on the DPP, but such an effect may be limited to northern Taiwan, where more voters get their information from the TV, whereas those in the south do not."
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
Tainan’s initiative to recruit digital nomads has resulted in several German, US and Vietnamese nationals applying to live and work in the city, the Tainan Research, Development and Evaluation Commission said yesterday. That marked the city as the first in the nation to attract digital nomads, following the launch of the program last month, it said. Although all applicants so far have used work visas or tourism visas instead of the special digital nomad permit from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the city government believes that the latter would be needed eventually, the commission said. The digital nomads recruited by Tainan would work
RSS