TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — If Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) picks Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) as his running mate, the duo will win next January’s presidential election, according to an opinion poll released Friday (March 10).
However, the result was only achieved if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ticket faced two main adversaries, with Foxconn Technology founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) not running for the Kuomintang (KMT), the survey by Taiwan’s Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) with Gallup showed.
Lai and Cheng received 36.45% of the vote, with a combination of Gou with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) as his running mate winning 23.59%; and New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) with Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) finishing third at 18.23%, per UDN.
While no political party has officially named a candidate for the January 2024 election yet, Lai, Hou, and Ko are seen as the most likely choices. Gou expressed his wish to rejoin the KMT, but the opposition party has not yet presented a formula on how to deal with him.
According to the poll, 53% of respondents want Hou to announce his presidential bid soon, while 33% support Gou’s bid to rejoin the KMT, though 41% opposed the tycoon’s return. Within the main opposition party, 33.45% would support the New Taipei City mayor launching a campaign for the presidency, 19.7% backed Gou if the tycoon rejoined the KMT, and 8.09% chose Chu as presidential candidate.
On the DPP side, 46.47% supported Vice President and Party Chairman Lai as a candidate, 7.91% chose Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), and 3.26% backed Vice Premier Cheng.
Former Taipei City Mayor and TPP Chairman Ko received 30.54% support, while Gou received 23.33% as an independent candidate, the survey said.
Gallup Taiwan conducted the opinion poll March 7-9, producing 1,076 valid responses with a margin of error of 2.99%.
