Most Taiwanese would not support a re-election bid by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), but would support Premier William Lai (賴清德) if he represents the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for the nation’s top office in 2020, a survey published yesterday showed.
The poll, conducted by the green-leaning Taiwan Brain Trust think tank from Wednesday to Friday last week, gauged voter preferences for the 2020 presidential race after the DPP’s landslide losses in the Nov. 24 nine-in-one elections.
The poll found that Tsai’s disapproval rating has climbed 12 percentage points from a similar survey by the think tank in July to 66.8 percent, while her approval rating has dropped to only 19 percent.
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
While 45.7 percent of respondents said they would not vote for a DPP presidential candidate in 2020, the number rose to 66.3 percent when asked if they would support a re-election bid by Tsai, compared with 22.4 percent who said they would.
Meanwhile, public support for Lai appeared to be noticeably higher than that of Tsai.
Asked to select their preferred DPP presidential candidate for the 2020 election, 56.5 percent of respondents picked Lai and 17.3 percent chose Tsai, while 26.2 percent preferred neither, the survey found.
The think tank also put Tsai and Lai in a hypothetical two-legged race against three potential Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidates: KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), outgoing New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Kaohsiung mayor-elect Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜).
Tsai would receive 41.4 percent of votes if running against Wu (29.4 percent), with her support dropping to 32.3 percent and 27.8 percent if up against Han (48.7 percent) and Chu (53.6 percent) respectively, the survey found.
The margins would narrow significantly if the DPP nominates Lai, who would receive 41 percent and 41.6 percent of votes if facing Chu (43.8 percent) or Han (43.5 percent) respectively, the poll found.
The premier would easily defeat Wu with 60.3 percent of support against the KMT chairman’s 19.9 percent, it found.
However, independent Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) appeared to be the strongest presidential candidate, as the survey found that he would win in all hypothetical scenarios if he enters the race against the projected DPP and KMT candidates.
The tightest race would be a three-legged election between Ko, Chu and Lai, who garnered the support of 34.3 percent, 29.5 percent and 28.2 percent of respondents respectively, the poll found.
The survey collected 1,072 valid samples. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
RSS