Lies made big enough - TW

[dArKeR]

By Toby Wilsdon

Thursday, May 27, 2004,Page 8


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The audacity of the pan-blue supporters in their advert on page 5 of the Taipei Times on May 20 was breathtaking.

Apparently, "36 hours before the vote, all independent polls showed still trailing by 5 to 10 percent." As I understand it, publishing opinion polls in the last week of the campaign is illegal in Taiwan. I am not aware of any independent polls taken in the last week having been published after the election. Any unpublished, private polls taken on behalf of political parties do not constitute "independent polls." On calling the number given in the ad, when I asked which polls they were referring to they didn't seem entirely sure.

A week before the election, it appeared Lien was probably roughly 2 percent ahead, by no means enough for an opposition candidate to be confident of victory given the swing to the incumbent that often occurs in the last week of election campaigns. There was no real consensus in the polls, with both sides offering conflicting data. One doubts the sophistication of the opinion polling organizations, having had only 10 to 15 years to practice their art. Polls conducted by organizations with decades of experience have been spectacularly wrong in mature democracies.

Apparently, "Underground gambling organizations were offering 2-to-1 odds against ." The obvious question is, of course, how do they know? This question was answered however when I was told that they know people in underground gambling organizations. No surprise there then. What they appear to have missed is that they have underlined the most plausible explanation for the shooting. Not politics, but money.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/05/27/2003157161