A survey of potential candidates in the race for New Taipei City (新北市) mayor next year showed incumbent Eric Chu (朱立倫) would enjoy a support rating of 58 percent if he seeks re-election, while his rival from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), former DPP premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), had 19 percent.
The poll, released by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) yesterday, also showed that New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) would have a 44 percent support rating if he were to represent the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the election, while support for Yu would be 29 percent.
Of the possible KMT candidates in the race, 49 percent of respondents said they would support Chu running for re-election, 13 percent favored Hou and about 5 percent wanted Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) for the post, the survey showed.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Chu, one of the KMT’s potential presidential candidates in 2016, is said to be arranging for Hou to run for New Taipei City mayor, while he skips the race to prepare for the presidential election. He declined to confirm yesterday whether he would seek re-election next year.
“I should focus my efforts on city development at the moment and not talk about the election. I will talk about it when the time is right, and I believe New Taipei City residents agree with me,” he said.
The survey was conducted from Dec. 16 to Dec. 19, polling 1,001 New Taipei City residents.
Asked about Chu’s conduct as mayor, 62 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with his performance, while 19 percent said they were not.
Chu enjoyed a high support rating of 89 percent among pan-blue voters; 33 percent of pan-green supporters also said they would vote for Chu if he decided to seek re-election.
Yu, on the other hand, had 57 percent of the pan-green voters, while only 4 percent of pan-blue voters said they would support him, the poll showed.
KMT spokesman Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) said the party would not comment on the poll results. The KMT will stick to its nomination schedule for the seven-in-one local elections next year, and the nomination procedures for New Taipei City will be completed in the final round of nominations along with other special municipalities, Yang said.
Meanwhile, Yu’s office questioned the authenticity of the public opinion poll, saying that the former premier’s support rating in the survey was far lower than the party’s support base of about 45 percent in the municipality.
“A number of recent public opinion polls conducted by various media outlets look strange and seem to have been conducted with a hidden agenda and implications,” said Meng Yi-chao (孟義超), the former premier’s spokesperson.
Meng did not elaborate on what those implications were, but said the poll appeared to have been carried out to influence the KMT’s New Taipei City mayoral primary.
Yu is the third DPP politician to have complained about the surveys conducted by the UDN Group over the past two days. Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and DPP Legislator Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財), both aspirants in the DPP primary for Taipei mayor, on Monday also accused a UDN poll of being unfair and biased.
Additional reporting by Chris Wang
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
RSS