Wed, Dec 20, 2023 page2

• Hou says his focus is on making KMT ruling party

  POLL BOOST: ‘Polls should be treated as references,’ he said, adding that a change in government would bring the chance of stability and a booming economy

  • By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
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  New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, yesterday said that he is focusing on making the KMT the ruling party next year, after a poll conducted by the Chinese-language United Daily News showed that he and Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate, were tied at a 31 percent approval rating.

  Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was trailing at 21 percent, the poll showed.

  “We still have about 20 days to go before the elections. Election polls, with their ups and downs, should be treated as references,” Hou said. “What I am hoping for is a change of the ruling party that would build a stable country with a booming economy.”

  

  New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi, top, gestures while standing in the back of a vehicle amid campaigning as the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate in Tainan yesterday.

  Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times

  A separate poll conducted by My Formosa showed Lai leading with 35 percent, followed by 31.7 percent for Hou and 18.2 percent for Ko.

  Despite criticism of Lai regarding a house he owns in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里), which was left to him by his father and was allegedly built illegally, his approval rating only dipped 0.2 percentage points from the previous My Formosa poll, while Hou’s slid 0.4 percent and Ko’s fell 1.5 percent.

  Separately, Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), Hou’s running mate, on Monday urged Beijing to treat Next Media founder Jimmy Lai (黎智英) “kindly,” or it would only drive Taiwanese further from the regime.

  In a speech at National Taiwan University, Jaw expressed his support for Jimmy Lai, whose trial for allegedly contravening Hong Kong’s National Security Law began on Monday.

  Jaw later wrote on Facebook that Jimmy Lai is a good friend of his and they used to eat together.

  “Until this day, whenever I was eating something delicious, I would think about the fact that [Jimmy] Lai has been in jail in Hong Kong for more than 1,000 days,” Jaw said. “Even though he was eventually given a trial, he could not hire his own lawyer. How can we even make sure that he can get a fair trial when three judges presiding over the trial were assigned by the Hong Kong government?”

  Jaw said that an announcement last week by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in which it accused Taiwan of imposing trade barriers on Chinese-made products was an example of Beijing intervening in Taiwan’s elections.

  “I strongly oppose the Chinese Communists Party’s [CCP] meddling in Taiwan’s elections, which stirs up a whirlwind of chaos every time,” he said. “Because of the CCP’s intervention, the voting rate in Hong Kong dropped to 27.54 percent this month, the lowest ever.”

  “How can Taiwanese have faith in the regime in Beijing when they look at Hong Kong?” he asked. “Why would I want to go to Hong Kong or China if this is how Beijing treats Hong Kong?”
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