The China Times polling center yesterday accused Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of defaming it by saying the results of a survey it released last week were misleading and politically motivated.
“We are 100 percent confident all polls we conduct follow professional guidelines without considering partisan interests or the intention to mislead the public,” the center said in a half-page statement published in the Chinese-language China Times.
“DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s claim on a TV show that the design of a poll was misleading and with special political intention has severely damaged our name,” the statement said.
Tsai was commenting on a poll that found 53 percent of respondents were opposed to a demonstration organized by the DPP against this week’s visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
To prove its poll was both impartial and accurate, the center invited the DPP’s polling center to conduct the same survey — monitored by attorneys and media outlets.
“If the results are the same as results from polls previously conducted by the DPP, the center would dissolve right away,” the China Times polling center said.
“On the other hand, if the DPP figures are wrong and the DPP polling center was one that manipulated poll results, Tsai should apologize” and the party should never release any poll results again, it said.
The DPP said it did not understand some of the China Times polling center’s remarks and it urged the paper not to overreact.
“At a press conference on Friday, Tsai clearly said that the mass demonstration organized by the DPP was not to protest Chen’s visit. Rather, the objective was to urge the government to follow democratic procedures and be transparent in cross-strait policymaking and to tell China that Taiwan is a sovereign country,” the DPP said. “So we think that the question in the China Times poll about ‘the DPP’s protest against Chen Yunlin’ was misleading.”
Although Tsai said the question was misleading, she never said the poll was politically motivated, as the China Times polling center claimed, the DPP said.
“We do not know where did the phrase ‘with special political intention’ came from, and we hope that the China Times will not overreact,” the DPP said.
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