The public no longer prizes rectitude above all else and now want its city mayors and county commissioners to be administratively capable as well as to keep their hands clean, a CommonWealth Magazine poll on attitudes toward county commissioners and city mayors showed yesterday.
The poll observed not only a general shift in areas marking the traditional backing of the pan-blue and the pan-green camps, but also the competition between the next-generation of political figures within either camp.
Half of the 10 highest-scoring officials were fresh faces on the political scene and three of the five top officials belonged to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — Greater Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) coming in first with 72.9 points, followed by Yilan County Commissioner Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) in second with 71.6 points and Chiayi County Commissioner Helen Chang (張花冠) in fourth with 68.7.
Hualien County Commissioner Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁), an independent, dropped to seventh place with 63.8 points after facing pressure to meet his campaign pledges, while Kinmen County Commissioner Lee Wo-shi (李沃士) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) made it to the top 10 with 61.8 points.
The poll also showed that the rankings of the mayors for the five special municipalities did not differ much from last year.
Aside from Lai ranking in the top three mayors for two consecutive years, Greater Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) of the DPP ranked fifth, reflecting belief that Chen was sensitive to the needs of Greater Kaohsiung residents.
In contrast, the poll placed the mayors of New Taipei City (新北市), Taipei and Greater Taichung — all from the KMT — between the 19th and 21st positions for the second consecutive year.
Poll data also showed residents now considered rectitude as the basic standard for administrative heads and demand that their city and county leaders’ also have the capability to govern, with KMT member and Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) the greatest example.
Liu’s emphasis on leadership and clear goals helped him gain third place with 68.8 points, despite his involvement in the Dapu incident, in which the Miaoli County Government seized farmland to expand the Jhunan science park by blocking off roads and sending excavators into farms that were awaiting harvest. Lai’s combination of resourcefulness and transparency in city affairs put him on top in the poll.
The poll also found that the next-generation of political figures have both high efficacy in administrative affairs and political support, with Lai, Lin and Chang all receiving more than 70 percent of support when respondents were asked who they would vote for if an election were held tomorrow.
Fu, Chen, Liu and Changhua County Commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) have all received more than 60 percent of support from residents in their cities on the question.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS