The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday the party’s polls showed its candidates for the Taipei City and Sinbei City special municipality elections were slightly ahead of their Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterparts.
After the KMT government signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China last month, although the approval ratings for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the KMT’s candidates for the five special municipality elections did not change, the DPP’s Taipei candidate, Su Tseng-chang, (蘇貞昌) and the party’s Sinbei candidate, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), saw a slight increase in their support, DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said.
“Ma and his KMT government use their executive power to promote the ECFA and to improve their approval ratings, but the polls show that it has been ineffective,” Lin said.
The electoral outlook for the DPP’s candidate for Greater Taichung, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), is also improving, Lin said, adding that the DPP’s poll suggests Su Jia-chyuan is only lagging behind his KMT counterpart, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), by 8 percentage points.
Meanwhile, the DPP’s candidates in Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung are maintaining a solid lead, Lin said.
On Thursday, the KMT published its poll, which showed that its candidates were leading in Taipei City, Sinbei City and Greater Taichung.
The KMT is simply “emboldening” itself by publicizing such a poll, Lin said.
As for the DPP’s polls, Lin said the party has a solid poll center, which conducts polls regularly that precisely reflect public opinion.
Director of the DPP poll center Chen Chun-lin (陳俊麟) asked if Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the KMT was as popular as the KMT poll suggested: “Why are KMT councilor candidates for Taipei City, Sinbei City and Greater Taichung all avoiding having their photo taken with Hau?”
At a separate setting yesterday, KMT spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) rebutted the DPP’s accusations and said the KMT had not published its poll results in an attempt to mislead the public as the DPP had.
“The KMT’s poll results were used as a reference point for the party, rather than a tool for the election campaign. The DPP should not point fingers at us when it is the one manipulating polls,” Su Jun-pin said.
KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) said yesterday the KMT never publishes poll results and he is always discussing the election outlook in response to the results of the DPP polls.
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