Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) approval rating was leading that of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) by 3.56 percentage points, according to a poll released by the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) on Friday.
The BCC-commissioned poll came after Tsai and Su faced off in televised policy sessions that are seen as a major indicator of whether they can sway voters before official nomination polls are held starting on April 25.
The poll was conducted on Tuesday and Thursday, while the second policy session was held on Wednesday.
The poll showed that Su scored an approval rating of 31.94 percent against Tsai’s 28.38 percent. The third contender, former DPP chairman Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良), received 6 percent.
PULLING ADEAD
The survey suggested that Su has benefited somewhat from his performance in the sessions, with support climbing about 7 percentage points against Tsai since the last BCC survey on April 4, when he was down by 3.5 percentage points.
A further breakdown of the latest poll suggested Su received an approval rating of 28.66 percent in the north of the country, while Tsai garnered 27.63 percent. In central Taiwan it was 31 percent for Su against Tsai’s 27.7 percent and in the south it showed 37.61 percent for Su against Tsai’s 30.11 percent.
The poll questioned 1,120 people, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.99 percentage points.
Asked about the increase after the third policy session yesterday afternoon, Su said he took every poll “very importantly and seriously.”
IMPROVEMENT
“I still have many areas I need to improve on. The most important thing is winning Taiwanese support and winning the 2012 presidential elections,” Su said.
However, Tsai sought to downplay the implications of the poll, saying that they rise and fall depending on who conducts the survey.
“It’s just used as a reference,” she said. “We have seen polls fluctuate from time to time.”
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS