Taiwan’s ruling party leads opinion polls as opposition remains mired in bitter dispute

TAIPEI - Taiwan cannot afford chaos or “experiments” when it comes to picking its president, the front runner to be the island’s next leader said on Nov 22, as the opposition remained mired in a bitter dispute on mounting a joint presidential challenge.

The Jan 13 election will

shape Chinese-claimed Taiwan’s relations with Beijing

at a time when China has stepped up military pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.

Taiwan again reported Chinese military activity around the island on Nov 22, with

11 aircraft crossing the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait

as the island’s election campaign kicked into high gear.

Vice-President Lai Ching-te from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whom China views as a separatist, leads opinion polls to be Taiwan’s next president.

Talks between the two main opposition parties to team up and take him on have floundered and are in deadlock.

Mr Lai and his running mate, Taiwan’s former United States envoy Hsiao Bi-khim,

formally registered with the election commission on Nov 21 to run in the election

, but it remains unclear what the opposition will do. The deadline to register is the afternoon of Nov 24.

Mr Lai told reporters that he and Ms Hsiao were “confident and determined to lead Taiwan steadily in the chaotic situation”. “Taiwan cannot afford chaos and experimentation at this moment,” he said.

Only candidates with experience and ideas can successfully lead Taiwan to continue its steady progress, Mr Lai said, standing with the DPP’s lawmaker candidates for Taipei city.

Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), which traditionally favours close ties with Beijing, had agreed with the much smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) last week to offer a joint ticket to take on Mr Lai.

But neither party could agree on how to interpret opinion polls on which of their candidates, KMT’s Hou Yu-ih or TPP’s Ko Wen-je, should stand for president and which for vice-president.

Mr Hou on Nov 21 called for reopening talks on the opinion polls and said he had never insisted that he had to be the presidential candidate. The KMT’s interpretation of the polls was that Mr Hou, being a presidential candidate, put him best placed to win over Mr Lai and Ms Hsiao, which TPP has rejected as unscientific and not in line with its statistical analysis.

On Nov 22, Mr Ko’s campaign director Huang Shan-shan gave no sign of backing down and criticised what she said were attacks on her, the TPP and Mr Ko by the KMT. “Our enemy is Lai Ching-te. This turmoil has let Lai lie around at home. He’s very happy,” Ms Huang said.

Mr Ko, asked at a separate event what was going to happen, said: “There are still two days, don’t be nervous.”

Another presidential candidate is Mr Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of major Apple supplier Foxconn, who is standing as an independent but has yet to formally register and has trailed in the polls.

His running mate, actress Tammy Lai, briefly visited the election commission on Nov 22 to pick up registration documents, but declined to say whether she and Mr Gou, who did not accompany her, would actually register.

Bombarded by questions from reporters, Mr Gou’s campaign spokesman Huang Shih-hsiu would only say that “anything can happen” before the Nov 24 deadline. REUTERS