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2012 ELECTIONS: Ma’s
support slumping: ‘The Economist’
By Jake Chung / Staff Reporter
Support for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has slumped, with his lead over
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) disappearing,
the latest edition of the The Economist reported.
The Economist wrote in an article dated yesterday that recent results from a
prediction market run by National Chengchi University showed that “the
probability of his winning the election dived from over 59% on October 16th to
under 42% on November 14th; Ms Tsai stands at 49%.”
Addressing People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) decision to
contest the January presidential election, the article said: “In a tight race he
could easily shave off votes from Mr Ma, leading to a DPP victory,” in a
scenario similar to the 2000 elections when Soong’s candidacy effectively split
the pan-blue voters between himself and then-KMT presidential candidate Lien
Chan (連戰).
The article said that the decline in Ma’s popularity was in part because of his
recent talk of a possible cross-strait peace accord, which was the first time
that Ma had provided an explicit time frame for cross-strait political
negotiations.
Describing Ma’s move as having “whipped up alarm in the media and among a
China-wary public,” the article said that Ma’s strong suit for the campaign —
the “stellar economic growth of over 10% last year” — is still being seen as
beneficial only for “big business at the expense of ordinary folk,” which places
Ma at a disadvantage to Tsai’s “popular focus […] on social welfare.”
The article said Tsai’s policy of higher subsidies for farmers was winning her
support and that financial worries across the globe would also strengthen her
chances, but it concluded by saying that Ma might still have some cards up his
sleeve in what it said was sure to a be a tight race.
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