More than 30 percent of eligible voters would cast their ballot for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) if the local elections were held tomorrow, compared with 22.92 percent for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and 20.52 percent for independent candidate Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), a poll conducted by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) showed yesterday.
The poll found that 23.83 percent were undecided, while 2.6 percent refused to answer.
Cross-analysis of the data showed that support for Chen, at 30.13 percent overall, was behind his opponents among voters aged 20 to 49.
Photo: CNA
However, his support rating among voters aged 30 or older was between 13 and 22 percent.
Chiang’s support rating among voters aged 50 to 59 was 25 percent, the highest among all age groups.
Huang was the most popular candidate among voters aged 20 to 29, with a support rating of 33.79 percent.
Photo: CNA
The poll, which was conducted from Wednesday to Saturday, collected 1,072 valid samples from Taipei residents and has a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
In related news, the KMT yesterday said that Chen and the DPP should apologize to the public over an “inappropriate” election campaign ad to introduce his proposed policy of installing electronic bidet seats in public restrooms.
In the ad, Chen appears to peek over the partition of a restroom stall down at a man sitting on a toilet, the KMT said.
Photo: Chu Wei-hsiung, Taipei Times
“Peeping is a criminal behavior, not creativity. It should not be encouraged,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee director Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) told a news conference.
“However, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) chose to support and campaign for Chen. This is a president who believes in a candidate who plagiarized his thesis and says nothing about peeping. Are these the core values of the DPP?” Hung said.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Yu Shu-hui (游淑慧) said the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) should be amended to ban commercials conveying messages of gender discrimination, sexual harassment and invasion of privacy, as they are a bad influence on minors.
“They will look at what Chen has done and ask: ‘Why should we not?’” she said.
“Chen’s campaign has attempted to use farcical ways to drum up media coverage, including making a ‘peeping tom’ film featuring an Internet celebrity. This is an outright abuse of the concept of gender equality,” Yu said.
She also criticized Chen’s campaign pledge to install electronic bidet seats in public restrooms.
“All the plumbing in public restrooms would need to be redone, which would take at least two years. The minimum budget for such a project would be at least NT$500 million [US$16.35 million]. He will also have to negotiate with Taiwan Power Co over the use of electricity,” she said.
DPP spokesperson Lin Chin-yi (林靜儀) said that Chen has apologized for the commercial and uploaded a revised version.
“The plan to install bidet seats in public restrooms aims to elevate the quality of public restrooms, which is an indicator of an advanced city. We hope that our opponent focuses on the policy itself, rather than deliberately highlighting and criticizing some minor details,” she said.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
A Japan Self-Defense Forces vessel entered the Taiwan Strait yesterday, Japanese media reported. After passing through the Taiwan Strait, the Ikazuchi was to proceed to the South China Sea to take part in a joint military exercise with the US and the Philippines, the reports said. Japan Self-Defense Force vessels were first reported to have passed through the strait in September, 2024, with two further transits taking place in February and June last year, the Asahi Shimbun reported. Yesterday’s transit also marked the first time since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took office that a Japanese warship has been sent through the Taiwan
RSS