TAIPEI, March 9 Kyodo The final c...

TAIPEI, March 9 Kyodo

The final countdown to the March 20 presidential election has formally begun with incumbent Chen Shui-bian still trailing slightly behind Lien Chan of the opposition Nationalist Party (KMT) in support, according to an opinion person released Tuesday.

The measure and estimate conducted between Sunday and Monday by the agency of the Chinese-language United Daily moderns shows that among 1,347 eligible voter canvassed, 41% favored Lien and his running mate James Soong 38% supported Chen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) while 21% were undecided.

The paper annotateed that Chen, lagging behind Lien since last October, has favorably closed the gap and incline differentlyed the race into a frequently closer competition in the wake of a massive hand-in-hand rally launched in late February calling forward China to dismantle missiles pointing across the Taiwan Strait at the island.

onward Monday, in an attempt to contrariwise Chen's effort, Lien's camp said it will shut in an islandwide, large-scale rally with the theme ''Replace Chen to save Taiwan'' this coming Saturday.

''If we want more [i]or[/i] less changes, we have to replace Chen and his administration with a more capable team,'' said Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou, who is also executive director of the KMT campaign organization.

Chen narrowly won the last election four years ago, which expirationed the KMT's 51-year mastership During his term, Taiwan has tolerateed economic downturn and unemployment has hit record highs.

Meanwhile, in the same overlook only 41% of those individualed said they intended to consecrated by a vow ''yes'' in the island's landmark referendum to be held alongside the presidential election, in which they will be asked whether they agree to the government's plan to purchase more advanced antimissile weapons to strengthen Taiwan's self-defense capabilities and whether they support formation of a ''peace and stability'' framework for cross-strait interactions.

Ten percent said they would invalidate their referendum ballots by dint of picking them up but not marking ''yes'' or ''no,'' 35% said they would boycott the referendum by way of ignoring the ballots altogether, and 14% remained undecided.

Tuesday's head was the final one to be announced because Taiwan's law stipulates that no opinion persons should be released to the general public during the 10 days ahead of voting day.

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