2012
ELECTIONS: Tsai in the lead, Brain Trust poll says
[Staff Reporter Chris Wang/Taipei]
DRIVER’S SEAT:The think tank said that the results of its survey were the best ever for a DPP presidential candidate, but Tsai still trails among female voters
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) holds a slight lead over
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in both a head-to-head scenario and a possible three-way race,
according to the latest survey, and Tsai would likely win the January presidential
election if economic issues were voters’ top concern, analysts said in a forum
yesterday.
A public opinion poll, conducted on Friday and Saturday by the
Taiwan Brain Trust think tank, found that 35.9 percent of respondents would
vote for Tsai, while 32.2 percent would vote for Ma and 13.7 percent would
support People First Party Chairperson James Soong (宋楚瑜) in a three-way race.
Tsai also leads Ma with 40.1 percent versus 37.3 percent in a
head-to-head battle, according to the survey.
While Tsai’s campaign has been hurt by a series of allegations about
her running mate Su Jia-chyuan’s (蘇嘉全) farmhouse in Pingtung County, it appeared she had more than made
up for it during her 11-day campaign trip on the west coast, said Chen Jin-ji (陳錦稷), director of the Taiwan
Brain Trust’s poll center, adding that Ma’s re-election campaign has suffered
devastating blows because of his peace agreement proposal.
Tsai enjoys a large lead in southern Taiwan in a head-to-head
battle, leading Ma by 17.9 percentage points in Yunlin, Chiayi and Greater
Tainan, and 27.2 percentage points in Greater Kaohsiung and Pingtung, the
survey showed.
She also holds the advantage among voters in the 20-39 age group,
with a 15.4 point lead in the 20-29 age bracket, and leads by 7.6 points in the
30-39 bracket.
Despite Tsai trailing among female
voters by 3.6 percentage points, the poll result is the best ever performance
for any DPP presidential candidate, Taiwan Brain Trust chief executive Lo
Chih-cheng (羅致政)
said.
Economic voting behavior was one of the most crucial reasons
contributing to the DPP’s landslide loss in the 2008 presidential election, as
financially challenged voters tend to favor a change in government, said
Kenneth Lin (林向愷),
an economics professor at National Taiwan University.
If that theory applies in the upcoming election, Lin said, the same
things could happen again because most of the respondents were not happy with
the economic performance of the Ma administration and said they were
pessimistic about Taiwan’s economic prospects.
The same survey found that more than half of the respondents are
unhappy with Ma’s -performance on fighting the increasing wealth gap,
unemployment and commodity prices, with 57.1 percent saying they were not
satisfied with Ma’s economic performance and 56.9 percent saying Ma favored big
business.
More than 70 percent of respondents described the nation’s
unemployment situation as “serious” or “very serious” and 53.5 percent are
concerned about losing jobs or being forced to take unpaid leave within the
next six months.
“Countries around the world are suffering from economic downturns
and turbulence. However, what concerns me the most is that, unlike other
countries, expectations for the future have been lacking among Taiwanese,”
Taiwan Brain Trust founder and former presidential adviser Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) said.
That is why a regime change seems inevitable, he said, especially
after Soong’s entry into the presidential election.
“From what I’ve seen, Ma has had no hope of being re-elected since
Soong made his bid official,” Koo said.
The poll collected 1,071 samples with a
3 percent margin of error.
from Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/11/03/2003517350
