A poll released yesterday showed that 42 percent of Taipei voters think the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should field its own candidate for November’s Taipei mayoral election, while 28.3 percent favor the DPP endorsing Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
The response from Taipei respondents differed from that of the nation as a whole, in which 40.6 percent of respondents think the DPP should endorse Ko and 34.1 percent believe the party should field its own candidate, Taiwan Brain Trust said.
Ko, a former surgeon, is an independent whom the DPP endorsed in the 2014 elections, but the alliance has been strained by the growing rift between Ko and DPP supporters over Ko’s perceived tilt toward China.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Taipei residents and the rest of the country are happy with Ko’s performance as a mayor, the poll showed.
Ko’s approval ratings among Taipei residents, non-Taipei residents and voters in general were 55.6 percent, 57.6 percent and 57.4 percent respectively, the poll showed.
The mayor is favored to win by 55.3 percent of Taipei residents, 47.5 percent of non-Taipei residents and 48.3 percent of all voters, it said.
However, 55.5 percent of the nation’s voters said they would not approve of Ko running for president in 2020 if he succeeds in being re-elected mayor. Only 26.3 percent said they would support such a move.
Taipei residents and non-Taipei residents disapproved of this hypothetical scenario by 66.6 percent and 54.1 percent respectively.
Should Ko fail in his re-election bid, 59.8 percent of all voters would still not approve of him running for president, while 25.9 percent said they would support Ko.
The disapproval rate for Ko in this scenario is 65.2 percent among Taipei residents and 59.2 percent among non-Taipei residents.
A total of 50.6 percent of all voters said they would like to see unconventional candidates run in the presidential election.
The survey also ran a hypothetical scenario in which Ko, Control Yuan member Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟), former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) and Formosa TV chairman Kuo Pei-hung (郭倍宏) ran as presidential candidates. The results showed them commanding support ratings of 32 percent, 17.9 percent, 5.5 percent and 2.6 percent respectively.
The telephone survey was conducted by the Trend Survey and Research Co on behalf of Taiwan Brain Trust. It collected 1,079 valid samples and had a confidence level of 95 percent. The poll was weighed by residency, gender, age and educational attainment.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS