The odds of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) winning re-election in 2012 continued to drop after this week’s cross-strait talks, while the trust index for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) continued to rise, reaching more than 50 percent this month, polls showed yesterday.
The Center for Prediction Market at National Chengchi University said on a scale from NT$0 to NT$100, the probability of Ma winning re-election was, according to bidders, NT$45.3.
Prediction markets are speculative exchanges, with the value of an asset meant to reflect the likelihood of a future event.
On Dec. 6, the figure fell below NT$50 for the first time since May, losing 2.3 percentage points in a day after Ma, who doubles as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, said his party had not performed as well as hoped in the “three-in-one” elections.
The KMT won 12 of the 17 mayor and commissioner posts up for grabs earlier this month, but its total percentage of votes fell 2 percentage points from 2005 to 47.88 percent of votes nationwide.
Since the center opened the trading on Ma’s re-election chances on April 11, prices have largely hovered around NT$60, but jumped to NT$70 in mid-June.
The figure then fell to NT$51.80 in August after Typhoon Morakot lashed Taiwan, killing hundreds.
Since Ma took over as KMT chairman, the center said the number had steadily declined from NT$58 on Nov. 18 to NT$50.80 on Dec. 5.
The figure fell below NT$50 after the local elections and fell further yesterday.
Meanwhile, a separate poll said voters’ confidence in Tsai stood at 51.8 percent this month, up 5.6 percent from last month and outperforming Ma’s 43.5 percent.
The poll released by Chinese-language Global Views magazine found that the DPP’s trust index was also higher than the KMT’s this month — the first time since the KMT returned to power in May last year.
That DPP’s trust index was 41.2 percent — a record high since the center began conducting its polls in June 2006 — compared with 40.6 percent for the KMT.
The pollster said the KMT’s decline had a lot to do with the way the administration handled the global economic downturn and its poor governance. The two factors combined contributed to public apprehension.
“In other words, the immediate problem facing the administration is not the presidential election in 2012,” it said.
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