Officials at the DPP campaign headquarters yesterday accused the KMT of exercising control over half the public poll institutions producing surveys for the election, saying the party has produced a plethora of "fake" polls that showed the KMT's candidate Lien Chan (連戰) leading the presidential race.
They said the party is cheating voters into possibly shifting their support to the KMT's candidate by doing so.
"We have found that over sixty percent of 26 so-called polling investigation institutions, as well as others we have never heard of before, are connected with the KMT or its party-run businesses," said DPP campaign headquarter spokesman Yu Ying-lung (
Yu pointed out that according to the DPP's own investigation, its party's presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian (
The KMT's Lien Chan, he said, remained in third position with only 22.4 percent of popular support.
"However, we can see that of the many polls issued during the past three days, almost all showed Lien is in the leading position," said Chen's campaign manager Chang Chun-hsiung (
"The problem," Chang said, "is that neither the scholars involved, nor their institutions, are specialized in the field of polling."
Chang specified a number of institutions in a bid to prove that the KMT manipulated the results of polls from those institutions.
"The `Association of Women for Creating Careers in the Republic of China' (中華民國婦女創業協會) and the `Association of Enterprises for Research and Development' (企研究發展協會), which publicized polls in the past two days, are obviously connected with the KMT," Chang said. "Their news releases originated at the KMT's campaign office."
Echoing the accusations, Chen Shui-bian also repeatedly told supporters yesterday during campaigning that the KMT had apparently tried to use the last two days before the statutory deadline of publicizing polls to cheat voters.
"The KMT candidate has remained in the third position, and therefore KMT officials have to produce fake polls to prevent him from being eliminated through competition," Chen told supporters.
Central Election Commission (CEC) rules stipulate that all presidential public polls are to be banned in the ten days before the election itself.
This means that the deadline to allow any institution to publicize its poll is March 7.
During the past three days, at least five polling firms have publicized information on the popularity ratings of the candidates.
Officials at independent candidate James Soong's office, meanwhile, also placed advertisements in local newspapers yesterday claiming Soong is in the leading position while asserting that Lien is out of the competition. The ads were a direct reversal of Lien's recent strategy of claiming Soong was already defeated.
Scholars said all three major candidates have used polls as tools for their own ends, which would only discredit the reputation of specified polling organizations.
"There have been several `tactical' polls in past elections trying to influence voters, and this problem is getting serious now," said Hung Yung-tai (
Hung suggested that the media should only publicize polls investigated by themselves and found to be legitimate, and should refuse to publicize surveys from organizations that have no track record.
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