Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday questioned why opinion polls are asking questions about support for him in the 2020 presidential election when he has never voiced a desire to run for the job.
After attending a handover ceremony for municipal school principals, Ko was asked by reporters about an opinion poll released on Tuesday that found nearly 40 percent of respondents supported Ko in running for presidency in 2020.
“This is interesting. I have never said I am going to run for president, so why are you asking that in the opinion poll?” Ko said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The poll indicated that his support rate could be higher than President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) if he challenged her re-election bid, although 51.6 percent of respondents were against him running for president, and 54.9 percent of residents in Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung opposed the idea.
As for the Nov. 24 elections, Ko has a significant lead (64.4 percent) in supportive rate against his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rivals, Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) respectively, the poll found.
Taipei residents are often least optimistic about him winning re-election when compared with the rest of the nation, but it might be because of “the beauty of distance,” he said, citing the lack of roadside parking fees outside of Taipei.
“It is interesting that the lowest support rate nationwide I get is in Taipei,” Ko said.
In his speech at the ceremony, Ko said that if he is re-elected, pushing forward with full-scale digitalization in education would be very important, as only by bridging the digital divide can students from lower socioeconomic levels have an opportunity to learn and compete with others.
Ko said he wanted to expand the scope of bilingual education in Taipei, and he pledged to continue funding for cultural exchanges to boost Taipei’s and Taiwan’s global presence by subsidizing overseas visits for students and teachers, encouraging students from other nations to visit Taipei and holding international events.
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