More than half of the people surveyed in a recent poll believe China is trying to sway the presidential election, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) official said yesterday.
Tsai Huang-lan (
The poll, conducted Feb. 12 and Feb. 13 by Focus Survey Research, collected 1,042 effective samples and had a margin of error of 3.04 percent.
The survey found that 51.4 percent of those polled said that Beijing is trying to sway the election, compared with 21.1 percent who disagreed.
Tsai said that if foreign forces intervene in the election, it will affect the nation's competition edge.
The poll found that 57.8 percent of respondents believe that tycoons who invest in China but leave huge debts in Taiwan will have a "very serious" impact on the nation's economy and 18.6 percent said they will have a "serious" impact.
As for who will be more capable of improving the situation, 27.4 percent named President Chen Shui-bian (
"This shows that President Chen is more capable of solving the problem," Tsai said.
The survey also found that 20.2 percent of the respondents believe that former Tuntex chairman Chen You-hau (
Meanwhile, The China Times said yesterday that Lien leads Chen by three percentage points in polls, but the election is still too close to call.
According to the newspaper's survey, Lien would win 43 percent of votes against 40 percent for Chen if the election was held now.
About 17 percent of those polled were still undecided.
The poll canvassed 2,535 eligible voters between last Monday and Thursday and the newspaper allowed for a two percentage point margin of error.
Although Lien has maintained a roughly three percentage point lead over Chen in recent surveys, this was the first time support for the president had risen to above 40 percent, the paper said.
Chen has said he wis confident he will win by between 300,000 and 500,000 votes, or roughly 3 percent to 5 percent of the vote. He has predicted the outcome would be similar to the 2000 election.
The China Times poll found 47 percent of voters -- most of them Chen supporters -- said they would take part in the referendum, while 36 percent said they would boycott it.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
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