A survey released yesterday showed that more than 70 percent of respondents think President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is no longer fit to serve as president and that nearly 65 percent consider Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) unfit for his position as well.
The survey, conducted by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) between Monday and Tuesday last week, showed that as many as 70.2 percent of respondents consider Ma unsuitable for his position.
About 57 percent of respondents said the president should step down voluntarily amid the snowballing wiretapping scandal involving him, the Special Investigation Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘), but 36 percent disagreed.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The scandal has intensified a political storm set off by the SID’s investigation into allegations of improper lobbying by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), a wiretap-based probe that has been characterized by critics and the DPP as a “political vendetta” waged by Ma against the legislative speaker.
As for Jiang, who has faced widespread criticism for his role in the “vendetta,” approximately 63.7 percent of those polled said the academic-turned-politician is unfit for premiership, with 24.5 percent disagreeing.
When asked if they support the legislature launching a no-confidence motion against Jiang, more than half — 53.5 percent — of respondents said they supported the move, while 37.6 percent oppose it.
About 48.5 percent of those polled think Ma should appoint another premier if the no-confidence motion against Jiang succeeds, while 39.5 percent said the president should dissolve the legislature.
According to the Additional Articles of the Constitution, the premier must tender his resignation within 10 days of the legislature passing a motion of no-confidence motion and may request that the president dissolve the legislature.
The survey also showed that Jiang is losing popularity among pan-blue supporters, with about 31.7 percent of respondents who identified themselves as pan-blue are in favor of Jiang being removed via a no-confidence vote in the legislature, compared with 77 percent saying they are the pan-green camp.
DPP spokesman Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said the number of people who consider Ma unfit for the presidency has been on the rise over the past month, citing surveys it conducted on Sept. 10 and Sept. 17 in which 64 percent and 67 percent of respondents respectively expressed this opinion.
“The trend indicates that more people deem Ma an unsuitable national leader after seeing how he has disrupted the constitutional order and destabilized society,” the spokesman said.
Wang Min-sheng called on the public to gather in front of the Legislative Yuan at 8:30am on Tuesday, the day the legislature is due to vote on a no-confidence motion that the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union against Jiang initiated on Friday.
“People can also call lawmakers from their constituencies and ask them to support the no-confidence motion,” he said.
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