The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Saturday failed to reach a consensus on a united ballot for the January presidential election due to disagreements over sampling error size and polling methodology.
The two opposition parties on Wednesday announced they were to use public polling to decide who would take the lead spot on the ballot, KMT candidate New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) or TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Each of the parties and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) picked an expert to analyze polls conducted from Tuesday last week to Friday, with the results to be announced at 10am on Saturday.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
However, after discussion late into the night on Friday, the three polling experts failed to reach a consensus, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said.
The TPP representative protested using three of the nine selected surveys, leaving a stalemate over whether they should be included, Hsiao said, without specifying the issues cited.
If the six remaining surveys are analyzed using the statistical margin of error, five support a Hou-Ko ticket, Hsiao said.
However, if a 3-percentage-point margin were used as supported by the TPP, they would be tied at three apiece, he added.
According to their agreed criteria from Wednesday’s meeting, a result within the margin of error would count as a point toward a Hou-Ko ticket, meaning a larger sampling error size would favor the KMT candidate.
The experts have therefore recommended that discussions be continued at a later date, Hsiao said.
At a separate news conference later in the morning, Ko reiterated the importance of forming an opposition alliance.
Ko said he wishes to keep negotiating with the KMT, but could not allow a 6-percentage-point margin of error.
“It’s like asking us to surrender our weapons,” he said.
Asked whether this means the breakdown of an opposition coalition, Ko said that “anything is possible” until the window for candidate registration closes at 5pm on Friday.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS