Poll puts DPP in the lead

Support for DPP legislative candidates in the year-end elections is still the highest among all political parties, according to a poll released yesterday.

The poll, conducted by Open Weekly, a local Chinese-language magazine, showed that if the elections were held tomorrow, DPP candidates would receive a support rate of 25.76 percent, while candidates from the largest opposition party, the KMT, would get a support rate of 20.32 percent and candidates from the People First Party (PFP) would get 16.7 percent.

The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) would get 1.91 percent, the New Party 1.43 percent, while those candidates without any party affiliation would get 2.39 percent.

Twenty-six percent of respondents also said they "have yet to make a decision" on which party to support.

Nearly 5 percent said they would not vote.

The survey showed that although 48 percent of the public is not satisfied with the performance of the government over the past year, DPP legislative candidates still lead their counterparts from other parties.

Chiu Chang (邱彰), a legislator-at-large candidate for the DPP, said that as the opposition continues to blast the performance of the government and blame the economic slump on the ruling party, the public is still positive about the performance of the DPP.

Chiu says this attitude shows "how unpopular the opposition parties are."

Tsai Cheng-yuan (蔡正元), a KMT legislative candidate, said that the survey showed that 34.3 percent believe that the KMT will be the most helpful in improving the economy. Tsai said this fact should be viewed together with the dissatisfaction of nearly 50 percent of respondents with the performance of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Tsai said that the ruling party should make national development and people's well-being priorities and that the government should respect the majority in the legislature after the elections.

In the same survey, 36 percent also said that PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is a KMT Central Standing Committee member, have the best chance of beating Chen in the next presidential election.

However, both the KMT and PFP said that the chance of such a ticket is slim, even if it were to have the majority support of the people.

Tsai said that a high level of support for a Soong-Ma ticket only underscores the dissatisfaction of the public toward the govern-ment, adding that "the ruling party is indeed lousy" compared with the performance of Soong during his term as Taiwan provincial governor.

Legislator Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交) of the PFP echoed Tsai's words by saying that even if the public is interested in seeing the two run together, the different political parties would not allow such a ticket.

Hwang said, however, that Soong is still the strongest contender among mainlanders and suggested that Ma continue to work hard in his job and pay visits to grassroots voters by traveling to the 309 villages and townships around the nation.

Hwang believes that "in time he [Ma] will become a potent presidential candidate with high support."

The poll was conducted from Oct. 22 to Oct. 24 by phone.

A total of 1,052 questionnaires were completed with a margin of error of 3 percent.