A majority of people polled in a recent survey said presidential candidates' performances in debates would not affect their support for them.
The first televised presidential debate is scheduled for Sunday and the second debate is scheduled for March 9. In addition to the televised debates, the Central Election Commission will also hold four live TV presentations, in which the presidential and vice presidential candidates will present their platforms.
The poll, commissioned by the Taiwan Thinktank and conducted by Focus Survey Research from Feb. 13 to last Saturday, showed that more than 63 percent of the respondents said that the candidates' performance at the debates would not affect their support for the candidate of their preference, while 28 percent said it might.
The survey also found that more than 43 percent of respondents believe Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), a political science professor at Soochow University, said that Ma was popular among respondents aged between 20 and 29 and predicted he would do a decent job in the debates.
Ma was also popular among female respondents, although respondents said Hsieh was a better mayor, the poll indicated.
While overall respondents said Hsieh had a better performance during his stint as Kaohsiung mayor, more women and young respondents said Ma was better.
The survey also indicated that more people supported the DPP's referendum proposal, at 44 percent, than that proposed by the KMT, at about 37 percent.
While the KMT is mulling whether to boycott the two referendum proposals, nearly 48 percent of the respondents said they would not accept it if the KMT decided to do so, while 33 percent said they would.
Regarding Hsieh's questioning of Ma's US green card status, more than 38 percent of the respondents said it was inappropriate for a presidential candidate holding a green card to be the nation's leader, more than 34 percent said it was appropriate and 24 percent said they did not know.
A majority of the respondents said Ma and his wife should make public information regarding their green cards and nearly 42 percent said they did not find Ma's crisis management capability satisfactory.
However, when asked whether the green card controversy would change their support for the candidate of their choice, more than 65 percent said it would not, while over 19 percent said it would.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS