TAIWAN: Polls find televised debate did little to sway opinion

In polls conducted by various newspapers after Saturday's debate, voters agreed that President Chen Shui-bian did better than his rival

Taipei Times
Monday, February 16, 2004

By Chang Yun-ping and Huang Tai-lin

Although various polls yesterday indicated that President Chen Shui-bian had outshined his rival Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan in the country's first televised presidential-candidate debate on Saturday, they revealed that the debate had a limited effect on voters' support of the candidates.

Various polls conducted by the media after the debate showed similar results: That viewers agreed that Chen's performance was better than Lien's with a rating difference of between 3 and 14 percent.

A poll by the Chinese-language newspaper China Times indicated that viewers generally was of the opinion Chen was more eloquent and quick-witted than his rival. Chen's approval rating was 56 percent and Lien's 15 percent.

In addition, 36 percent of the public favored the administrative platforms proposed by Chen, while 32 percent of viewers supported Lien's ideas.

The debate nevertheless had a limited effect and voters did not change their support for the candidates, the polls found.

The poll by the United Daily News showed the approval rating for Chen and Lien at 44 percent and 30 percent respectively.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday praised Chen's performance, saying he outshined his rival in terms of quick-witted responses to questions and attacks, but had reservations over whether this would help Chen to gain an edge in the electoral race.

DPP spokesperson Wu Nai-jen yesterday criticized Lien's smearing of Chen's character when he implied that Chen might try to influence business heavyweights by inviting them for lunches in the Presidential Office. Lien also belittled Chen's height when he had to stand on a raised podium in order to appear of the same height as Lien during the debate.

Wu said "the country's leadership has nothing to do with personal height. Rather, it is the person's vision for a better administration that matters. Lien's attack on Chen's short stature simply reflected that he wanted to divert people's attention from the KMT's failures."

As for the assessment of Lien's performance in the debate, members of the KMT-People First Party (PFP) alliance yesterday said the pan-blue camp's presidential hopeful had demonstrated to viewers that he possessed the characteristics necessary for a national leader.

"Lien had showed his leadership and his steadiness and calmness during [Saturday's] debate. The alliance has high confidence in Lien," said alliance spokesman Alex Tsai at a press conference held at the alliance's national headquarters.

Meanwhile, the alliance yesterday fingered Chen for distorting Lien's words and smearing him during the debate. The alliance demanded a public apology from the DPP's presidential candidate.

"Chen came from a background of being a lawyer, yet at the debate, he openly gave a false account of the truth," Tsai said.

"What Chen did was an apparent act of insulting the general public's intelligence," he said.

Tsai said that, for instance, "Lien said in the debate that both sides of the Strait should put aside the sovereignty controversy, but Chen later distorted his words by saying that Lien advocated that Taiwan's sovereignty should be put aside."

Tsai said that Chen should also apologize for a personal attack on Lien. Tsai was referring to Chen's concluding remarks during the debate, when Chen, aiming to dismiss Lien's charge that he was a capricious person, said that his hairstyle has never changed over the years nor his love for his wife and that he had never abused her and never will.

The pan-blue camp believed Chen made these remarks referring to a long-standing rumor that Lien had physically abused his wife, Lien Fang Yu.

PFP caucus leader Chou Hsi-wei, who also serves as the deputy director of the alliance's policy department, said that statistics cited by Chen on the nation's economic growth and national debt were incorrect.

"Chen owes the general public an apology for deliberately misleading them to get them to overlook efforts by the former KMT administration. He wants all the credit for saving the nation NT$2.5 billion in the construction of the second north-south freeway, the improvement in Kaohsiung's tap-water quality, and the like," Chou said.

Date Posted: 2/16/2004