President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) are locked in a tight presidential election race, with the latest media poll putting the lead Ma holds over Tsai within the poll’s margin of error.
A poll result released by the -Chinese language China Times yesterday showed that if only two pairs of presidential candidates were fielded, Ma and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ticket against Tsai and DPP Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) on the DPP ticket, the support rate for the Ma-Wu ticket would be 44.3 percent, while it would be 41 percent for the Tsai-Su ticket.
Although the poll gave Ma a lead of 3.3 points over Tsai, it was the closest gap between the two candidates in the presidential surveys that the China Times has conducted in recent months.
Photo: Taipei Times
If People First Party (PFP) presidential hopeful James Soong (宋楚瑜) were to participate in the January presidential election along with his running mate, academic Lin Ruey-shiung (林瑞雄), the Ma-Wu ticket would garner 41.7 percent support, while the Tsai-Su ticket would gain 38.2 percent and the Soong-Lin ticket would receive 10.4 percent, the poll showed.
The poll questioned 1,074 people and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
On Monday, xfuture.org, a Web site with a platform similar to the stock market that allows users to predict the results of future events, said Tsai held a slight lead over Ma in terms of her percentage of votes and her possibility of getting elected.
As of Saturday, the exchange predicted that Tsai would receive 49.5 percent of votes, Ma would get 48.3 percent and Soong would take 7.5 percent. Tsai has held the lead in the past nine days, and in the past three days her margin has exceeded 1 percentage point.
On the possibility of being elected, on Saturday the exchange gave Tsai 44.8 percent, Ma 41.5 percent and Soong 13.5 percent.
It said Ma’s chances of winning the election rose steadily from early September, peaking on Oct. 16 when he was 18.7 percentage points ahead of Tsai. However, that lead narrowed after Ma floated the possibility of signing a peace pact with China within the next 10 years.
According to National Chengchi University’s Prediction Markets Center, prediction markets efficiently collect effective information through a futures or stock-trading mechanism that relies on the wisdom of the public, who buy and sell contracts of future events on the market.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique