Chinese university deletes study forecasting win for Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan election
- Fudan team predicts independence-leaning president will be re-elected on Saturday with nearly 60 per cent of the vote
- But their research is taken down from website just hours after it is released
It concluded that Tsai, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, would garner nearly 60 per cent of the vote to defeat her two Beijing-friendly rivals and be re-elected for a second term.
The study was the result of more than a year of research by a team led by Tang Shiping, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai.
It made the prediction using statistical modelling based on demographic, economic, political and social data from the self-ruled island, the university’s Centre for Complex Decision Analysis said in a statement releasing the results on Thursday.
The centre said it wanted to release the forecast just ahead of the election to allow people to compare it with the outcome. But hours after the study was posted, it was taken down from the university’s website. The centre and Tang did not return calls seeking comment.
Taiwan’s heated election has seen Tsai campaigning on the need to safeguard the island’s sovereignty in the face of Beijing’s threats. Her main rival, Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu from the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang party, has advocated for closer ties with mainland China after relations deteriorated under Tsai’s administration. The third contender, James Soong Chu-yu, from the mainland-friendly People First Party, has been largely ignored in the race after declaring his presidential bid just two months before the vote.
