Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday continued to lead in the latest survey of presidential candidates by a media outlet, with People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) second.
The survey, conducted by the TVBS poll center, showed Tsai commanding 38 percent, while Soong had 20 percent and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) had 17 percent.
Compared with TVBS’ July 19 poll, support for Tsai climbed by 4 percentage points, while Soong’s edged up 1 percentage point. Hung was the only candidate to see her support drop, falling sharply by 8 percentage points from 25 percent last month.
The precipitous fall in Hung’s numbers was reflected in every demographic group, regardless of age, geography or party affiliation, the poll showed.
By age group, among respondents over 40 years old, support for Hung fell 10 points. It plunged by an even heavier 14 points among voters over 60 years old, the survey showed.
In the Taipei-New Taipei City-Keelung area, Hung saw her support rating halved to 16 percent from last month’s 32 percent.
A cross-analysis by political affiliation showed that respondents affiliated with the DPP returned to support Tsai after Soong joined the race, boosting her rating by 6 points; among respondents affiliated with the KMT, support for Hung dropped to 54 percent from 62 percent.
The survey was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, with a sample size of 1,091 and a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
The results of the TVBS poll reflected similar results as those conducted in the past month by other media outlets and organizations, such as the Cross-Strait Policy Association, Taiwan Indicators Survey Research, Taiwan Thinktank and the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) and the United Daily News: All showed Tsai taking the lead, followed by Soong and with Hung in third place.
The one exception was a poll commissioned by the Taiwan Competitiveness Forum, a think tank led by academics known for their pro-unification stance, which showed Tsai leading with 36 percent, but with Hung ahead of Soong at 26.9 percent and 15.5 percent respectively.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software