Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has taken a small lead over President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) ahead of the presidential election, in a poll by a local TV stationS.
In the poll released yesterday by TVBS, Tsai and her running mate, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), lead their Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterparts, Ma and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), at 47.3 percent versus 45.8 percent.
Poll results ahead of the Jan. 14 presidential election were calculated in accordance with both decided voters and about 14 percent of undecided voters, said the station, which is generally perceived as sympathetic to the KMT.
In decided voter support, the Ma-Wu ticket enjoyed only a narrow advantage over the Tsai-Su ticket, at 39 percent versus 38 percent. People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) received 9 percent support, the poll suggested.
The results gave Tsai the lead in the presidential race over Ma for the first time in the station’s polls since May, when she was formally nominated as the DPP presidential candidate.
In the station’s poll on May 30, Ma led Tsai with 46 percent against her 42 percent. In the previous poll in September, support for Ma remained at about 46 percent, while Tsai received only 38 percent support.
Commenting on the TVBS poll, Ma’s re-election campaign office spokesperson Ma Wei-kuo (馬瑋國) said that the camp took every survey result into consideration. She declined to say whether the falling support rate for the Ma-Wu ticket reflected public disappointment with recent government performance.
She said the camp would stick to its campaign strategy and continue to promote Ma and the government’s achievements in the past three years ahead of the January vote.
Meanwhile, according to the latest information from xFuture, a Web site with a platform similar to a stock market exchange that allows users to predict the results of future events, Tsai’s lead over Ma is widening.
On Thursday, the exchange predicted Tsai would receive 49.9 percent of votes, Ma would get 46.1 percent and Soong would take 7.5 percent. On the probability of winning the election, the exchange gave Tsai 47 percent, Ma 42.8 percent and Soong 12.4 percent.
The exchange last Saturday predicted that Tsai would receive 49.5 percent of votes, Ma would get 48.3 percent and Soong would take 7.5 percent. On the probability of an electoral victory, the exchange gave Tsai 44.8 percent, Ma 41.5 percent and Soong 13.5 percent.
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.
Additional reporting by staff writer
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS