Using an opinion poll to select a presidential nominee is being discussed within the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as next Friday’s deadline for negotiations between its primary candidates approaches.
Since former premier William Lai (賴清德) registered for the primary on March 18 and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) registered three days later, after having confirmed in February her intention to run for re-election, some in the party are calling for Tsai and Lai to run on the same ticket.
However, Lai has rejected the proposal, an anonymous source said.
Photo: Su Fang-ho, Taipei Times
When a team of DPP arbitrators — DPP Chairman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — attempted to find common ground between the pair, Lai insisted on following through on his primary bid, the source said.
Party policy says that an opinion poll should be used to select a nominee if more than one candidate insists on running.
The team would need to negotiate between the candidates to decide on a polling method. The opinion poll could pit each candidate against a potential rival from another party, or pit Tsai and Lai against each other. If they go up against another party’s candidate, Tsai and Lai would have to agree on who that would be.
Sources said that Tsai’s campaign team is leaning toward the former method, because it would likely show a smaller gap between Tsai and Lai’s approval ratings, and would prevent pan-blue supporters from interfering with the poll.
DPP Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇), who has aligned himself with Tsai, suggested adopting the former method at a DPP Central Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday last week.
If the opinion poll pitted Tsai and Lai against each other, a pan-blue supporter’s response would not necessarily indicate how they intended to vote, Wang said.
If negotiations between Tsai and Lai break down, the DPP would need to select the strongest candidate, or the one who represents the “greatest common factor among voters who are not voting for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT),” Wang said, adding that only an opinion poll that put DPP candidates up against an opponent from another party could achieve that.
On Sunday, Lai said that Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) was the KMT’s strongest candidate.
Wang agreed that Han would attract the most support from pan-blue supporters, and proposed using Han as the opponent in an opinion poll.
If an opinion poll is held, it would take place on April 15 to 17, the party said.
Tsai and Lai would also need to agree on details such as the proportion of the polling sample that would be contacted by landline and by cellphone.
The party’s nomination of a presidential candidate would not be affected by factors beyond its control, such as whether Han is running, DPP Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said yesterday.
Tsai’s campaign team is conflicted about whether she would benefit from the primary being delayed, sources said, adding that although her team has not discounted the possibility, some team members fear that a delay would hurt her campaign.
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