Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) justification for replacing Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as the party’s presidential candidate does not seem to hold water, as he appears to be even more unpopular than Hung among pan-blue supporters, a survey released yesterday showed.
The poll, conducted by Taiwan Indicators Survey Research on Monday and Tuesday, showed that nearly 57 percent of respondents feel unfavorably toward Chu, with only 24 percent saying they had a good impression of the KMT chairman.
That compares with a similar poll carried out by the research group last month — when Hung was still the KMT’s candidate — with 52 percent of respondents expressing their disfavor of the deputy legislative speaker, while 30 percent supported her.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Chu, who has been hailed by most KMT members as the party’s only hope of continuing its reign, also received a higher disapproval rating of 22.1 percent among respondents identified as pan-blue than Hung, who garnered 17.3 percent in last month’s survey.
The results indicate that the aftermath of the KMT’s controversial move on Oct. 17 to force Hung out of the Jan. 16 presidential race and nominate Chu instead continues to take a toll on the chairman’s election prospects, the survey center said.
The results also undercut the KMT’s rationale behind removing Hung, which cited her consistently lackluster support ratings, which the party said could jeopardize its legislative majority, as well as her pro-unification policies, which it said strayed from the party’s cross-strait stance.
Asked who they plan to vote for in the presidential election, 47.1 percent of respondents said they would support Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), 16.4 percent said they favored Chu and 10.2 percent preferred People First Party (PFP) challenger James Soong (宋楚瑜). Thirteen percent said they would abstain from voting, while 13.4 percent declined to express an opinion.
It is worth noting that Chu’s support rating was close to that of Hung — at 15.6 percent in a survey released on Oct. 15 — before she was edged out by her own party.
As for their perception about major political parties in Taiwan and China, 42 percent of those polled had a good opinion of the DPP, compared with 21.6 percent for the KMT and 13.7 percent for the Chinese Communist Party.
The poll collected 1,004 valid samples from residents aged 20 or above across the nation. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
CLOSED FOR DISINFECTION: Two of the three local cases were linked to a cluster infection at a kindergarten, while the other case works at a McDonald’s restaurant The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported three new local COVID-19 infections and 11 imported cases, but no deaths. The local cases are two men and a woman aged between 20 and 80 who reside in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, the CECC said in a news release. Two of them are linked to a cluster infection at a kindergarten in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), said Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman. He said they are both associated with the mother of a kindergarten student, who was earlier confirmed to have
BIOLOGICAL AGENT: A containment exercise was held in southern Tainan, in response to a mock assault where troops were assumed to be attacked by bioweapons The live-fire component of this year’s annual Han Kuang military exercises, Taiwan’s major war games involving all military branches, began yesterday morning and is to run until Friday to test the armed forces’ capability to fend off a Chinese invasion. The 37th edition of the annual event officially began after the Ministry of National Defense’s Joint Operations Command Center, also known as the Hengshan Command Center, announced the initiation of the five-day live-fire drills. Yesterday’s drills were focused on testing the military’s preservation and maintenance of combat capabilities in the event of a full-scale Chinese invasion. As part of the drills, air force
WELCOME BACK: Foreign spouses or minor children of Taiwanese can now directly apply for a visa with representative offices overseas, the CECC said Regulations on applications for entry to the nation by foreign spouses or minor children of Taiwanese have been relaxed effective immediately, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported two new local and three imported cases of COVID-19. Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), deputy head of the center, said the relaxation meant that such applications would be treated as general cases, instead of special ones that are reviewed on a case-by-case basis. “Considering the recent local COVID-19 situation and the needs of foreign spouses and children to visit their family in Taiwan, we are allowing Taiwan’s
PINGTUNG EXERCISE: The pilots tested their ability to land on the 24m-wide provincial highway, preparing for a scenario in which dedicated airstrips are damaged Emergency landing and takeoff drills for military aircraft were held on a provincial highway for the first time early yesterday as part of Taiwan’s Han Kuang military exercises, testing the ability of pilots and aircraft to land on narrow roads were airstrips to be damaged. The drill began at 6:30am on a 2.26km section of Provincial Highway No. 1 linking Pingtung County’s Jiadong (佳冬) and Fangliao (枋寮) townships. An Indigenous Defense Fighter, an F-16V, a Mirage 2000-5 and an E-2K early warning aircraft participated. The planes landed on the highway in that order at 6:30am, 6:32am, 6:34am and 6:36am before taking off at
RSS