Sixty-seven percent of respondents surveyed in a poll released by the Taiwan Thinktank (台灣智庫) yesterday said that they oppose political parties intervening in the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee and they welcomed its establishment.
The poll also showed that about 40 percent of respondents think the special committee organized by the legislators will not be more impartial than the law enforcement agency that probed the attempted assassination of the president and vice president.
Taiwan Thinktank, a foundation that focuses on researching government policies and regularly conducts public surveys, commissioned Focus Survey Research (山水民意研究公司) to conduct the survey on Aug. 27 and Aug. 28 among 1,027 adults nationwide about their viewpoints on the constitutional amendment bills and the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute (三一九槍擊事件真相調查特別委員會條例) that were passed last week.
Most trusted
Kuo Chien-chung (
After legislators passed the bills to halve the number of legislative seats and implement "a single-member district, two-vote electoral system" last week, 81.4 percent of respondents said that they think the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would become the two major political parties af-ter the legislative changes take place. Only 6.2 percent of people agreed that the People First Party (PFP) will be one of the two major parties. This illustrates that the PFP's supporters are experiencing a confidence crisis regarding the party's future, Taipei Society chairman Hung Yu-hung (洪裕宏) said yesterday in a news conference.
Hung said, however, that small parties like the PFP and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) would still have their own niches under such an electoral system as long as they focus on creating a conspicuous party image and cultivating belief in their causes among their supporters.
Meanwhile, about 65 percent of those polled think that any impeachment of the president should be decided by a people's referendum, not by the Council of Grand Justices, which was empowered to impeach the president in the amendments.
Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠), head of the Judicial Reform Foundation, said that the survey showed that the unreasonable statutes have enraged the general public, who do not have much legal knowledge.
Kao said that he hoped this survey could draw the pan-blue camp's attention to its inept creations and also hoped the statute on the shooting matter would be vetoed by the Executive Yuan next week, as is widely expected in legal circles.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
RSS