Another controversy has hit the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) decision to solely use telephone polls to choose a candidate in the presidential primaries.
Party politicians yesterday debated whether asking voters to “only support” a single candidate would run counter to its ideas of avoiding inner party strife.
However, supporting all three candidates would render the poll useless, other DPP politicians said.
The problem apparently lies in the DPP’s poll design, which will be presented to voters nationwide between April 25 and April 29.
Under the current design, poll respondents would be asked whether they would support each of the three candidates against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) next year.
The official nominee would be based on which candidate, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) or Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良), has the best chances of beating Ma.
If more than one ranks above the president, the candidate with the most support overall, regardless of margin, will take the nomination.
Backers of Tsai, including former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), have worried that DPP supporters would rate all three DPP candidates higher than Ma, rendering their input unusable.
“The goal of the primaries is to choose one from three. If voters support all three candidates, it defeats the purpose of the poll,” Hsieh said. “If there are, for example, 100 pan-green voters and they support every DPP candidate over Ma, then even one pan-blue voter could skew the result in their favor.”
Advertisements produced by groups connected to Tsai’s campaign have said that voters should “only support” the DPP chairperson, suggesting that they should choose Ma over the other two candidates.
Tsai spokesperson Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) said that those remarks did not run counter to party unity “because DPP voters are very mature and can make the best decision.”
However, the other DPP frontrunner’s campaign is calling on voters to “best support” Su, instead of “only supporting” him.
“It’s natural for voters to support every candidate that they think is a good choice,” Su said on Tuesday. “It’s normal to [support] all three.”
Tsai and Su, the two frontrunners in the race, have seen their poll ratings remain almost even with only two weeks left before the polls start.
The winner of the primary is expected to be announced before the end of the month and will be confirmed on May 4.
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