Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has taken a small lead over President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in the presidential election campaign, a poll released by Taiwan Thinktank yesterday showed.
According to the poll, Tsai had 35.9 percent support against Ma’s 35.4 percent, while support for People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) was at 10.8 percent, the poll showed.
Compared with a previous poll conducted by the group earlier this month, support for both Ma and Tsai dropped about 3 percent.
Photo: Su Fu-nan, Taipei Times
Former DPP legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮) said the result showed that recent incidents and disputes, from the price of persimmons to the first presidential debate last Saturday to controversy surrounding DPP vice presidential candidate Su Jia-chuan’s (蘇嘉全) wife, Hung Heng-chu (洪恆珠), for attending at a party 10 years ago that featured a male strip show, did not benefit any candidate.
Instead, the incidents added uncertainty to the election, Kuo said, as the percentage of undecided voters increased from 10 to 17.9 percent.
On growing youth unemployment, 76.9 percent of respondents said that it was a serious issue that needed to be addressed promptly, while 65.8 percent said forced unpaid leave among private businesses was also a serious matter.
“The poll showed that the unemployment rate among young people and unpaid leave are serious issues for voters regardless of party preferences, and presidential candidates should focus more on addressing the issues,” Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), a political scientist at Soochow University, said at a press conference held to release the poll results.
Liu Chin-hsin (劉進興), a retired professor at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said income and employment are two key economic elements, and the presidential candidates should address those issues because they concern the public the most.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
RSS