More than 80 percent of students who took part in online mock elections ahead of the Jan. 11 polls voted for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as the next president, the National Students’ Union of Taiwan said yesterday.
The mock elections were jointly organized by groups including the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy and the Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare, as well as 35 university student unions, the union said.
Voting took place on Facebook from 8:20pm on Thursday last week to 8:20pm on Sunday, the groups said, adding that holders of student identification cards from senior high schools, vocational high schools and universities in Taiwan were allowed to vote for one presidential candidate and one political party.
Photo: CNA
A total of 11,369 valid votes were cast in the mock elections, union president Tan Ko-him (陳佑維) said, adding that invalid votes, such as those cast by non-students, were not counted.
University students accounted for 8,594 votes, while senior-high and vocational-high students accounted for 2,775, he said.
Tsai, of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), won the mock presidential election with 85.5 percent of the vote, he added.
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) finished second with 9.8 percent and Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, garnered 4.7 percent of the vote for third place, Tan said.
Four political parties — the New Power Party (NPP), the DPP, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) — secured at least 5 percent of the party vote, he said.
The NPP received 26.86 percent of the party votes, followed by the DPP at 25.78 percent, the Taiwan Statebuilding Party at 24.21 percent and the TPP at 11.87 percent, he said.
Legislator-at-large seats are to be divided among the parties that pass the threshold in the Jan. 11 legislative election.
With 454 votes, the Green Party Taiwan crossed the 3 percent threshold that would be required for a party to qualify for government subsidies, Tan said.
The KMT fell short of the 3 percent threshold with 341 votes, but reached the 2 percent threshold that would allow it to nominate legislator-at-large candidates in the next three legislative elections, the results showed.
The PFP received 1.81 percent of the votes, while the other 12 parties that were also included in the mock election each garnered less than 1 percent of the votes, Tan said.
The Han Kuang exercises, the nation’s major war games, are to start today and run for five days. The drills are to include a military aircraft emergency takeoff and landing exercise on a regular roadway on Wednesday, featuring all three fighter jet models in Taiwan’s fleet, a military source said last week. The drill is to begin at 6:30am on a 3km section of Provincial Highway No. 1 in Pingtung County’s Jiadong Township (佳冬), and feature an Indigenous Defense Fighter, an F-16V, a Mirage 2000-5 and an E-2K Hawkeye early warning aircraft, the source said. The emergency landing and takeoff drill aims to
MRNA VACCINE: Heart inflammation is rare, but possible after a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot, and students need to be aware of possible side effects, an expert said As Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccinations for students aged 12 to 17 are to begin on campuses on Thursday next week, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday urged recipients to be especially watchful for five signs of possible myocarditis or pericarditis, which are rare adverse reactions to some COVID-19 vaccines. The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices convener Lee Ping-ing (李秉穎) joined the CECC’s daily news briefing to report on possible side effects after receiving a BioNTech vaccine. Lee said that cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been observed in people in the US who have received mRNA COVID-19
Taiwan on Friday accused China of seeking to use the Honduran election to “create controversy” and undermine Taiwan’s long-standing ties with the country, saying it would strive to win support for Honduras’ relations with Taipei. Honduras’ main left-wing opposition party, the Liberty and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), led by ousted former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, has said that if it wins November’s presidential election it would seek to “readjust” the country’s debt and establish diplomatic relations with China. Honduras is one of 15 UN member countries that maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has already warned Honduras not
TESTING THE WATERS: Making the considerations public a day after a Biden-Xi phone call indicates that the US is testing China’s reaction, a think tank head said A Financial Times report that the US is considering allowing Taiwan to change the name of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington to feature the name “Taiwan” highlighted Washington’s “two-pronged” approach to China, a researcher said yesterday. The report on Friday said that Washington might allow the nation to change the office’s name to “Taiwan Representative Office.” The report came after US President Joe Biden on Thursday spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) by telephone for the first time since February. A White House readout of the call said that “the two leaders discussed the responsibility of both
RSS