The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday expressed confidence about winning the special municipality elections next month in Taipei City and Sinbei City as its latest poll showed increasing leads for the party’s two candidates over their opponents.
The poll, conducted by the party from Saturday to Tuesday with about 1,300 respondents, showed Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) leading his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) counterpart Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) by 6 percentage points, and the KMT’s Sinbei candidate, Eric Chu (朱立倫), also leading the poll over his opponent DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) by more than 6 percentage points.
Without revealing more details about the results, KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) said the poll showed the party’s -candidates led the poll by larger margins than previous surveys. He attributed the two candidates’ improved support ratings to their campaign efforts and the positive effect of the upcoming Taipei International Flora Expo.
“In Taipei City, the poll showed that Mayor Hau gained more support from swing voters, and apparently the DPP created a backlash with its attacks against the expo,” he said.
In Sinbei City, King said Chu’s campaign platform on the developing MRT lines and canvassing local cities both helped him gain more support.
He said the KMT’s polls were used for the party’s own reference and criticized the DPP for discussing the results of its polls with the press in what he called an attempt to manipulate the election results.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in his capacity as KMT chairman, urged all party legislators to use every resource to campaign for party candidates in the five municipalities.
“The success or failure of the five special municipality elections will affect the party, and I hope all legislators will use your contacts and spare no effort to campaign for party candidates,” he said at KMT headquarters.
Denying King’s accusation, DPP officials yesterday defended the credibility of its own surveys, saying that they believed their polls to be more accurate.
The latest DPP poll, taken last week, showed Tsai with a 43.5 percent support rating among voters in the to-be-formed Sinbei City area against 43.1 percent for Chu.
“There is no doubt that the DPP poll is accurate. No [party officials] can influence the outcome of our own surveys,” said Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), one of the DPP’s chief election strategists.
Speaking on the high ratings for KMT candidates found in the latest KMT poll, he said: “I guess everybody needs something to [believe in].”
Hsieh also said that the DPP’s practice was to not release polls not in the party’s favor. Surveys that the DPP has been reluctant to release include internal party polls conducted in Greater Taichung, an area where DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) said the party still had some catching up to do.
Wu said that based on the DPP’s analysis of the upcoming special municipality elections, Su would likely beat Hau while voters in the soon-to-be upgraded Taipei County are equally divided between Tsai and Chu.
“These two cities are traditional KMT strongholds and I can understand that they [the KMT] must be under a lot of pressure,” Wu said. “If this were happening to us in our [strongholds] in the south, we would be worried too.”
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