Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials yesterday requested that all sides respect an agreement reached on Wednesday to use public polls to decide a coalition ballot for the January election, after the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) made a last-minute demand that the KMT provide original sampling and data by 6pm yesterday.
Wu Yi-hsuan (吳怡萱), spokeswoman for TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) campaign office, said that the TPP had six major points of contention regarding the public poll agreement.
The TPP just wants to ensure that the rules are adhered to, Wu said, adding that it was not clear whether the polls offered a choice for who would appear first on the ballot, and whether they were asked about a three or four-way race, in addition to other methodology issues.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
She also questioned whether the three experts chosen by each party and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would consider online polls.
As the timeline is short, with the results to be announced at 10am today, it is possible they were already settled using figures from earlier on or compiled by the party itself, she said.
TPP legislators yesterday also responded to reports that KMT officials in Taichung had sent out notices to party members telling them to lie about their age when receiving telephone calls from pollsters.
“We must warn the KMT not to manipulate public polls this way,” TPP caucus convener Chiu Chen-yuan (邱臣遠) told a news conference in Taipei.
“It could happen that in these past days that people are hearing of fake poll results and bogus sampling data, or we may find later on that it had been a scheme,” he added.
Chiu cited reports as saying that the KMT’s Taichung chapter had told party members to tell pollsters that they are in their 20s, since younger voters are usually given more numerical weight, as they are underrepresented.
When interviewed on a radio program on Thursday night, Ko said he is confident he would win over New Taipei City Mayor and KMT candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜).
“I have watched the poll numbers for six months — the Ko-Hou ticket always comes out on top by a large margin,” he said. “But I still ask our supporters not to take these for granted.”
Asked what he would do if fraud were detected in the poll analysis process, Ko said he would not recognize the result.
Ma recommended head of National Chengchi University’s Department of Political Science, Chen Lu-huei (陳陸輝), while the KMT nominated Chuang Po-chung (莊伯仲), a former professor in Chinese Culture University’s journalism department, and the TPP selected Kuan Chih-yu (關智宇), a polling expert, sources said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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