A majority of respondents in a public opinion poll released yesterday said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should not expel Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and that the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID) should be abolished following its conduct in an influence-peddling case involving Wang and other officials.
The survey, conducted by Taiwan Thinktank, found that 53.5 percent of respondents thought the division was a corrupt institution, 51.1 percent of those polled said it should be scrapped and 72.6 percent said that the SID had jeopardized the judiciary’s integrity with its investigation into Wang’s alleged influence peddling on behalf of Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
Almost half, or 49.9 percent, of those polled said they believed that Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) was guilty of leaking intelligence because he delivered a private report about the probe to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) before it was publicly announced, while 59 percent said Huang was incompetent.
Among the pan-blue supporters questioned, 41.7 percent said Huang had leaked intelligence while 25.7 percent disagreed and 32.6 percent declined to comment.
The survey found that respondents seemed to be more discontent with Ma’s alleged political motivations in the case, which many say is a political persecution of Wang, than with the SID’s investigation.
In addition, 63 percent of those polled said that Ma had employed a “double standard” by not condemning Huang’s behavior, while former Bureau of Investigation chief Yeh Sheng-mao (葉盛茂) was sentenced to jail for concealing government documents and leaking confidential information to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and to Ker.
Following revelations that the division wiretapped Wang’s phone during the probe, 70.3 percent of the respondents said Ma has betrayed his pledge to eliminate illegal wiretapping and political surveillance and 50.7 percent agreed that Ma was trying to remove Wang so he could control the Legislative Yuan.
Nearly half, or 45.7 percent, of the survey participants expressed concerns about the judiciary’s wiretapping of civilians.
The poll found that Ma’s approval rating of 17.1 percent was at its lowest level since the think tank began conducting monthly tracking polls in March last year, while his disapproval rating remained high at 71.4 percent.
The figures paled in comparison with Wang’s, with the legislative speaker enjoying an approval rating of 60.5 percent and a disapproval rating of 21.8 percent.
The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, collected 814 valid samples and had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS