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.
The Central Weather Bureau could issue a sea alert for Super Typhoon Mawar, as it is forecast to turn north and come closest to Taiwan from Tuesday to Wednesday next week. Mawar was downgraded from a super typhoon to a typhoon after sweeping across Guam on Wednesday night, knocking down trees and leaving much of the US territory without power. Many residents of Guam yesterday remained without power and utilities after Mawar tore through the remote US Pacific territory the previous night, ripping roofs off homes, flipping vehicles and shredding trees. There were no immediate reports of deaths and injuries, but the
ADJUSTMENTS: Over the next five years, every year except 2026 would have only one makeup workday to compensate for national holidays, the government said The Executive Yuan (EY) yesterday announced the official workday calendar for next year, which includes one makeup day and four holidays with more than three days off. It also announced new standards for makeup days in the event of consecutive holidays. The Directorate-General of Personnel Administration cited the importance of the Lunar New Year and Tomb Sweeping holidays to the public as its reason to mandate flexible off-days. The 115 total off-days dovetail with dates that international financial markets are closed, minimizing the effects of state holidays on stock and currency exchange trading, it said. Over the next five years, only the calendar for
Police on Sunday said they are on alert after the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) invited an alleged top leader of a Japanese criminal organization to visit Taiwan. The party and a branch of the Hongmen society reportedly invited Joji Uezu from the Kyokuryu-kai, the only yakuza group in Okinawa designated by Japanese police, to visit Taiwan along with six other people. Members of Taiwan’s Bamboo Union (竹聯幫) have reportedly participated in events hosted by the Kyokuryu-kai as early as 2015. The Okinawa Times in 2018 reported that Chang Wei (張瑋), son of former Bamboo Union leader and CUPP founder Chang An-le (張安樂),
INVASION UNPOPULAR: Chinese would likely accept their government having a softer stance toward cross-strait relations, one of the coauthors of the article said Interest among the Chinese public in the issue of China’s unification with Taiwan is low, researchers said, citing the results of a poll. An article titled “Assessing Public Support for (Non-)Peaceful Unification with Taiwan: Evidence from a Nationwide Survey in China,” published in the Journal of Contemporary China on May 14, showed that only 55 percent of those surveyed in China would support the use of military force to achieve unification with Taiwan. In the survey, which polled 1,824 people on the question of how they would like to see the issue of Taiwan’s unification with China resolved, “only one out of
RSS