A poll released yesterday found an overwhelming majority of respondents — 82.96 percent — are unhappy with the way the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) handled the Sunflower movement protests over the past three weeks.
The survey, conducted by the Chinese-language Liberty Times’ (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) polling center on Wednesday and Thursday nights, also found that a majority of respondents thought the student activism would deepen democracy in Taiwan.
The Sunflower movement became the name of the protesters who occupied the Legislative Yuan on March 18 to protest against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade agreement.
Photo: Lin Yi-chang, Taipei Times
The movement’s sit-in inside the legislature’s main chamber ended on Thursday evening when more than 100 protesters left the building.
When asked about the movement’s demands that a law governing oversight of cross-strait negotiations be passed before a review of the service trade pact is resumed, 74.19 percent of respondents agreed with the demand, 17.44 percent disagreed and 8.37 percent had no opinion, the poll found.
More than half of those polled — 58.32 percent — were against student protesters having to face legal action over their actions.
Of those surveyed, 34.28 percent favored the judiciary investigating the protesters, while 6.4 percent declined to comment.
Even among supporters of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the dissatisfaction rates were high.
Analysis showed that among those respondents who said they favored the KMT, 71.16 percent were not happy with the government’s handling of the Legislative Yuan protest, while 25 percent backed the administration.
Among those who said they supported the Democratic Progressive Party, 94.44 percent said that the government had mishandled the situation, while 3.47 percent said they were satisfied with the government’s reaction.
Among those respondents who said they were politically neutral, 82.47 percent did not agree with the government’s handling of the student-led opposition, while only 10.6 percent were in favor.
Comparing the Presidential Office’s response to the Wild Lilies student protest in 1990, when then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) met with student representatives at his office and gave concrete answers to their demands, the poll found that respondents were unhappy with the Presidential Office’s initial criticism of the Sunflower movement and its subsequent sidestepping of the students’ demands.
The Liberty Times poll interviewed 1,015 people aged 20 or above through a random sampling of the last two digits of home telephone numbers nationwide.
The poll has a margin of error of 3.08 percentage points positive or negative and was completely funded by the Liberty Times.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
One of two tropical depressions that formed off Taiwan yesterday morning could turn into a moderate typhoon by the weekend, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Tropical Depression No. 21 formed at 8am about 1,850km off the southeast coast, CWA forecaster Lee Meng-hsuan (李孟軒) said. The weather system is expected to move northwest as it builds momentum, possibly intensifying this weekend into a typhoon, which would be called Mitag, Lee said. The radius of the storm is expected to reach almost 200km, she said. It is forecast to approach the southeast of Taiwan on Monday next week and pass through the Bashi Channel
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency as well as long-term residency in Taiwan has decreased, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that the reduction of Chinese spouses staying or living in Taiwan is only one facet reflecting the general decrease in the number of people willing to get married in Taiwan. The number of Chinese spouses applying for dependent residency last year was 7,123, down by 2,931, or 29.15 percent, from the previous year. The same census showed that the number of Chinese spouses applying for long-term residency and receiving approval last year stood at 2,973, down 1,520,