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2012 ELECTIONS: Poll
respondents say Tsai performed best in TV debate
By Mo Yan-chih, Chris Wang and Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff Reporters,
with Staff Writer
An instant poll conducted by the search engine Yahoo-Kimo, the Taiwan unit of
Yahoo, yesterday found that 38 percent of respondents thought Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had performed
best in the first televised presidential debate.
Thirty-one percent of respondents favored People First Party presidential
candidate James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) performance, while 29 percent said President Ma
Ying-jeou (馬英九) performed better.
Two percent said they were undecided or had no opinion.
Yesterday’s first televised presidential debate took place from 2pm to 4:30pm.
The online poll was conducted from 2pm to 6pm on the question: “Whose
performance in the presidential debate did you find the most satisfactory?”
According to Yahoo-Kimo, a total of 12,406 people voted during the four hours.
Among them, 4,762 voted in favor of Tsai’s performance, 3,785 in favor of
Soong’s performance and 3,629 in favor of Ma’s performance.
At the post-debate press conference, Ma declined to comment on his own
performance in the debate, but praised both Tsai and Soong for their
performances, promising to value their advice and criticisms.
Ma, in his opening remarks in the debate, used “Taiwan” for the first time when
referring to the nation, but later declined to confirm that his recognition of
Taiwan as the nation’s title represented his agreement with Tsai’s rhetoric that
“the Republic of China [ROC] is Taiwan.”
“When we say ‘Taiwan,’ most of the time we are referring to the ROC. ‘Taiwan’ is
the common title for the nation,” Ma said.
On his position on future visits to China if re-elected, which he failed to
answer during the debate, Ma said he would not visit China if he could not make
the trip as the nation’s leader.
Tsai said at her post-debate press conference that she was glad her proposed
“Taiwan consensus” was discussed in the debate and that it would serve as a
notice to Beijing, “because China has to realize that if I am elected in
January, I would be able to represent the mainstream public opinion.”
Tsai said she also welcomed a surprising remark by Ma, who said in his opening
remarks that “Taiwan is also my country” — the first time he has done so in a
public setting.
When asked whether she would make a “no independence” pledge, Tsai said the
so-called independence is not an issue for the DPP because the party has made it
clear that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country with the current name
of the ROC.
It is Ma who has to ask himself where the issue of unification comes from if Ma
now views Taiwan as a sovereign country, Tsai said, “and if Taiwan is his
country, does the ‘three noes policy’ still mean anything?”
When asked to comment on her debate performance, Tsai said: “Overall, I think I
did pretty well.”
Meanwhile, Soong, at his post-debate press conference, when asked by the press
whether he felt he seemed to be ignored by Ma and Tsai during the debate, said
he was happy to be marginalized “because they both engaged in trivial issues
rather than ideas to rule the country.”
While giving high praise for Ma and Tsai for their performance, Soong added that
he also put a lot of effort into the debate.
Soong pledged to establish a “Two Rs” government — Responsible and Responsive —
if he is elected, to embody the value of the country’s democracy.
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