A survey of potential candidates in the race for New Taipei City (新北市) mayor next year showed incumbent Eric Chu (朱立倫) would enjoy a support rating of 58 percent if he seeks re-election, while his rival from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), former DPP premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), had 19 percent.
The poll, released by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN) yesterday, also showed that New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) would have a 44 percent support rating if he were to represent the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the election, while support for Yu would be 29 percent.
Of the possible KMT candidates in the race, 49 percent of respondents said they would support Chu running for re-election, 13 percent favored Hou and about 5 percent wanted Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) for the post, the survey showed.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Chu, one of the KMT’s potential presidential candidates in 2016, is said to be arranging for Hou to run for New Taipei City mayor, while he skips the race to prepare for the presidential election. He declined to confirm yesterday whether he would seek re-election next year.
“I should focus my efforts on city development at the moment and not talk about the election. I will talk about it when the time is right, and I believe New Taipei City residents agree with me,” he said.
The survey was conducted from Dec. 16 to Dec. 19, polling 1,001 New Taipei City residents.
Asked about Chu’s conduct as mayor, 62 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with his performance, while 19 percent said they were not.
Chu enjoyed a high support rating of 89 percent among pan-blue voters; 33 percent of pan-green supporters also said they would vote for Chu if he decided to seek re-election.
Yu, on the other hand, had 57 percent of the pan-green voters, while only 4 percent of pan-blue voters said they would support him, the poll showed.
KMT spokesman Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) said the party would not comment on the poll results. The KMT will stick to its nomination schedule for the seven-in-one local elections next year, and the nomination procedures for New Taipei City will be completed in the final round of nominations along with other special municipalities, Yang said.
Meanwhile, Yu’s office questioned the authenticity of the public opinion poll, saying that the former premier’s support rating in the survey was far lower than the party’s support base of about 45 percent in the municipality.
“A number of recent public opinion polls conducted by various media outlets look strange and seem to have been conducted with a hidden agenda and implications,” said Meng Yi-chao (孟義超), the former premier’s spokesperson.
Meng did not elaborate on what those implications were, but said the poll appeared to have been carried out to influence the KMT’s New Taipei City mayoral primary.
Yu is the third DPP politician to have complained about the surveys conducted by the UDN Group over the past two days. Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and DPP Legislator Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財), both aspirants in the DPP primary for Taipei mayor, on Monday also accused a UDN poll of being unfair and biased.
Additional reporting by Chris Wang
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
RSS