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.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a