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Updated Saturday, April 16, 2011 11:32 pm TWN, The China Post news staff

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Su leads Tsai in DPP primary: poll

The China Post news staff -- President Ma Ying-jeou is leading his opposition rivals by a narrow margin, with ex-Premier Su Tseng-chang coming as a slightly stronger challenger than Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen in the presidential race, results of a poll showed yesterday.

Ma received 33.21 percent support when pitched against Su, who lagged behind with 32.46 percent, according to the results of a poll commissioned by Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC).

The poll indicated a wider gap between Ma and Tsai in a head-to-head race, with the former taking 34.97 percent and the latter 32.43 percent.

But the differences between the three contenders were within the margin of error.

The incumbent's support soared to 45.19 percent when pitted against former DPP Chairman Hsu Hsin-liang, who won a meager 8.57 percent.

The opinion poll was conducted between April 12 and 14 following the first round of a DPP-organized forum series for its hopefuls — Su, Tsai and Hsu — to spell out their platforms.

When asked to choose between the three contenders, the respondents favored Su over the other two: Su winning 31.94 percent, Tsai 28.38 percent and Hsu just six percent.

In a similar poll conducted between on March 30 and 31, Tsai was the front-runner with 33.63 percent, followed by Su's 30.12 percent and Hsu's 6.55 percent.

The two polls have shown consistent patterns with Hsu lagging far behind Tsai and Su, who are running neck and neck.

A breakdown of the results revealed that male respondents showed more support for Su (35.79 percent) than for Tsai (25.9 percent). But Tsai won support more support from female respondents, with 30.84 percent against Su's 28.08 percent.

Geographically, Su was the most favored among the DPP candidates in all regions. Su received support of 28.66 percent in northern areas against Tsai's 27.63 percent.

In central Taiwan, Su and Tsai won 31 percent and 27.7 percent respectively; while in the southern parts of the island, Su's popularity was 37.61 percent, and Tsai's 30.11 percent.

Tsai was more popular among DPP supporters, but Su had stronger backing from more neutral respondents and Kuomintang supporters.

(Related stories on pages 15, 16)

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