Voters apparently feel that the campaigns for the Taipei and Kaohsiung elections are turning out to be rather tepid and boring. The candidates themselves are nervous because campaign news is being crowded out by a seemingly endless supply of sex scandals. Gamblers are also cool about betting on the election results because of the large gaps between the candidates' opinion poll ratings. But can the polls be trusted?
Will the election results mirror the opinion polls? Not necessarily. Will Taiwan's opinion polls follow in the footsteps of the US polls ahead of the midterm elections there? Perhaps. After all, many of those US polls indicated that the Democrats would gain a great deal of ground in the Senate and the House. The election results were the complete opposite.
The opinion polls for Taipei's mayoral candidates, for example, appear off-base. That the polls conducted by pro-unification media show a large gap between Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
However, now even polls conducted by professional organizations are also showing a spread of as much as 40 percentage points between Ma and Lee. This does not fit with the city's electoral makeup. It is also too far off from common sense.
There are certain structural factors behind Taipei's infatuation with Ma, but the pan-green camp has undeniably expanded its voter base in the city. The TSU rose to prominence in 2001 under the leadership of former president Lee Teng-hui (
President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen lost his re-election bid in 1998, but he still gained 45.91 percent of the vote. Ma and the New Party's Wang Chien-shien
Now let's look at legislative elections. The DPP gained 33.38 percent in 2001, up from 29.87 percent in 1998. Add to this the TSU's 5.4 percent and the pan-green camp had almost 40 percent. It grew by about 9 percentage points.
However, opinion polls which were conducted by pro-unification media show the DPP's Lee Ying-yuan has only a little more than 20 percent of support. Some believe this is the result of the nation's slumping economy.
But the economy was even worse off before last year's legislative elections. Why, then, did the green camp see its support base grow?
The fact that Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) continues to enjoy strong support also appears to refute the assertion that the economy is the issue.
Another factor to consider is the change in phone use, as mobile phones have become more widespread. Opinion polls conducted via fixed-line phones are simply not reliable -- people who stay home and answer the phones are likely to be retired elderly people with strong political views.
Questioning the accuracy of opinion polls now may sound a little too arbitrary. However, if the election results prove that opinion polls have been inaccurate, then pollsters and the media will turn out to be losers.
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