Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to refrain from resorting to foul means in the final stages of the election campaign to try to tilt the election in its favor.
On the sidelines of a campaign event for New Power Party legislative candidate Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) in New Taipei City yesterday morning, Tsai said recent polls have shown that the DPP’s prospects in the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 16 are relatively stable.
“However, given that the DPP’s primary opponent is the KMT, which sits on a large pile of assets and has an advantage as the ruling party, we urge it not to employ any foul means to create electoral variables that could impair Taiwanese democracy or undermine the interests of the nation,” Tsai said.
Photo: Lin Hsin-han, Taipei Times
Tsai made the remarks following the release of a survey by the Chinese-language Apple Daily on Monday, which showed that she continues to enjoy a considerable lead over the other two presidential candidates with a 40.3 percent rating.
KMT presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) garnered a support rating of just 18.6 percent, only 1.6 percentage points better than the 17 percent support for Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) early last month.
People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) secured 8.2 percent support.
The poll, conducted by Shih Hsin University at the Apple Daily’s request, found Tsai to be popular among swing voters, as her support rating is higher than the DPP’s 34 percent.
However, only a fraction of KMT supporters — 23.3 percent — favored Chu.
Tsai said discussions are still under way about the DPP’s list of legislator-at-large candidates, which is expected to be finalized by the DPP’s Central Executive Committee next week, but the party has determined to save some of the slots for representatives of civic groups and non-governmental organizations.
“These candidates who represent certain groups of society all possess their own sets of expertise, and can help reinforce the bond between the DPP and the public, and give major social issues more prominence after being elected to the legislature,” Tsai said.
Tsai said she would announce her running mate before the presidential candidate registration period, which is to take place from Nov. 23 to Nov. 27.
“What I can tell people right now is that my shortlist for the party’s potential vice presidential candidate has become shorter, from a B4-sized piece of paper to an A4-sized one,” she said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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