It would be a tight contest between Vice President William Lai (賴清德), New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) if next year’s presidential election involved the three potential candidates, a public opinion poll released yesterday said.
Lai, Hou and Ko received 34 percent, 31.4 percent and 22.3 percent support respectively in the poll, the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation told a news conference in Taipei.
The foundation’s poll for this month found that 36.7 percent of respondents backed Hou to run for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), while 28.6 percent supported Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), 7.9 percent supported KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), 4 percent supported Broadcasting Corp of China (中國廣播) chairman Jaw Shaw-kang (趙少康) and 22.8 percent said they did not know.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
Of the respondents, 57.7 percent supported Lai, who is chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), in the presidential election, while 16.7 percent picked former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to represent the party, 5.9 percent chose Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and 19.8 percent said they did not know.
Compared with the foundation’s poll last month, Hou’s support rating dropped 7.3 percentage points, Lai’s increased 5 percentage points and Ko’s rose 4.5 percentage points.
Hou’s declining support shows that people are becoming aware that he has a limited say in national affairs in his current role, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said, adding that Lai’s support increased because his bid to become DPP chairman made him the focus of the recent news cycle.
In terms of party support, 26.1 percent backed the DPP, 21.5 percent chose the KMT and 20.3 percent supported the Taiwan People’s Party, while the New Power Party and the Taiwan Statebuilding Party each received the backing of 4.3 percent, the poll showed.
Of the remainder, 1.2 percent supported other political parties, 21.3 percent said they do not support any party and 1 percent said they did not know who to choose.
The poll found that 49.5 percent were dissatisfied with President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) cross-strait policies, 38.5 percent were satisfied, 9.8 percent had no opinion and 2.2 percent said they did not know.
Seventy-two percent supported extending mandatory military service to one year, 17.3 percent opposed the policy, 7.9 percent did not have an opinion and 2.1 percent said they did not know.
Fifty-seven percent were dissatisfied with the performance of Su’s Cabinet, 35.8 percent approved of it, 5.4 percent had no opinion and 1.8 percent did not know.
Regarding the Taiwan-friendly portions of the US National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 passed last month, 59.1 percent said they welcomed military assistance from Washington, while 28.4 percent did not, 7.8 percent had no opinion and 4.8 percent did not know.
Asked whether US military aid would push Taiwan into a war, 53.4 percent disagreed, 38.1 percent agreed, 5.5 percent did not have an opinion and 3 percent did not know.
The poll was conducted from Monday to Wednesday last week by calling landline telephones, and targeted adults aged 20 or older. The poll had a valid sample of 1,085 and a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS