The Taiwan Competitiveness Forum, a think tank composed of academics, yesterday unveiled the results of an online poll that allowed voters to "recommend" legislative candidates they believed should be boycotted, with nine Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) district legislative candidates making the 10-member list.
At a press conference, forum secretary-general Thomas Peng (彭錦鵬) said the final list of "unqualified" candidates was mostly made up of those who had received frequent media exposure and were considered "controversial" by the public.
The names on the list included DPP legislative candidates Wang Shih-cheng (王世堅), Tsai Chi-fang (蔡啟芳), Lin Chung-mo (林重謨), Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇), Pasuya Yao (姚文智), Yu Tien (余天), Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲), Yeh Yi-chin (葉宜津) and Tu Wen-ching (杜文卿) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidate Chang Chin-chung (張慶忠).
Peng said several factors may have contributed to the results, including the DPP's poor record of administrative achievement, DPP officials being found guilty of corruption and the DPP's unpopular handling of the recent controversy over the voting procedure.
Peng said 10,175 people over 20 years of age had taken part in the online poll so far.
He said the results were credible, as the forum had publicized the campaign among voters from across the political spectrum.
The campaign was given equal exposure in three major Chinese-language newspapers -- the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper), the United Daily News and the China Times -- after the forum was launched early last month, he said.
Peng said DPP legislator-at-large candidates Wang Sing-nan (王幸男), Yu Shyi-kun and Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) had often topped the legislator-at-large boycott list in the past four weeks.
"This shows that the party's [legislative] nomination procedure was flawed," he said.
"The public generally believes that the DPP is good at campaigning, but [some of] its great incumbent legislators failed to be nominated by the party this year," Peng said.
When, earlier last month, Peng was asked whether putting the campaign's Web site on the China Times platform might raise suspicions that the campaign was meant to benefit a certain camp, he replied that the China Times only provided the platform but did not interfere.
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