Former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) appears the most likely candidate to win the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) chairpersonship election in May, according to a survey released yesterday by the Taiwan Public Opinion Studies Association.
The survey was conducted on Feb. 24 and Feb. 25 among 691 of the KMT’s approximately 1,600 party representatives to gauge their perceptions about the six candidates in the race for the party’s top post.
Wu led the other five in all six areas in the poll: political experience (55 percent of respondents), capability of uniting the KMT (48 percent), capability of leading the KMT back to power (48 percent), leadership competency (53 percent), chance of winning the election (43 percent) and support rate (45 percent).
KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) placed second in all six categories, but her support rate was only 21 percent, while KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) came in third in every area and had a 17 percent support rate.
The other three candidates placed far behind, with Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corp president Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) earning just a 2 percent support rate and former KMT vice chairman Steve Chan (詹啟賢) and former KMT legislator Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) each receiving 1 percent.
Former KMT lawmaker Chen Ken-te (陳根德) said the poll results showed that the campaign for the May 20 election is closely related to the candidates’ cross-strait policies.
“One of them supports the framework of ‘one China, same interpretation’ ... and proposed ‘seeking agreement on the one China principle, while shelving the different interpretations of one China’ when meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last year, which I believe runs counter to mainstream public opinion,” Chen said, referring to Hung.
Wu’s support of the “one China, with different interpretations” framework, which has been welcomed by the majority of Taiwanese appears to have led to his higher support rate in the survey, Chen said.
The survey had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Temperatures in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) climbed past 37°C yesterday, as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued heat alerts for 16 municipalities, warning the public of intense heat expected across Taiwan. The hottest location in Taiwan was in Sindian, where the mercury reached 37.5°C at about 2pm, according to CWA data. Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) recorded a temperature of 37.4°C at noon, Taitung County’s Jinfeng Township (金峰) at 12:50 pm logged a temperature of 37.4°C and Miaoli County’s Toufen Township (頭份) reached 36.7°C at 11:40am, the CWA said. The weather agency yesterday issued a yellow level information notice for Taipei, New
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans