Wu Den-yih’s (吳敦義) appointment as premier was not as popular as that of vice premier-designate Eric Chu (朱立倫), polls showed yesterday.
A survey conducted by the TVBS Poll Center on Monday night found that 61 percent of respondents said Chu, Taoyuan County commissioner and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman, was suitable for his new job, while 12 percent said he was unsuitable and 27 percent did not give an opinion.
Only 40 percent of respondents said Wu was suitable, with 26 percent saying he was not suitable and 35 percent saying they did not have any preference.
PHOTO: CNA
Asked whether Wu would do a better job than his predecessor, outgoing Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), 32 percent said Wu would and 6 percent said he would not. Some 36 percent said he would do equally well, and 25 percent did not give an opinion.
The poll questioned 920 adults.
Liu surprised the public by announcing on Monday that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had accepted his resignation and that he would lead the Cabinet in resigning tomorrow to take responsibility for the government’s much-criticized response to Typhoon Morakot.
Shortly after his announcement, the Presidential Office announced the appointments of Wu and Chu.
Described by the media as a “lonely bird,” or individualist, Wu was praised by proponents as smart and ambitious, but criticized by opponents as difficult and belligerent.
A poll by the Chinese-language United Daily News (UDN), a pro-pan-blue paper, found that 53 percent of respondents supported Chu’s appointment and 41 percent said they were satisfied with the choice of Wu.
The poll also found that 54 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with the performance of Liu and 57 percent said they were glad that Liu and his Cabinet would resign.
An earlier UDN poll showed that one month into Liu’s premiership last year, his approval rating was 43 percent, with 33 percent disapproving.
Meanwhile, the resignation of Liu and his Cabinet gave Ma a boost, the new UDN poll showed. His approval rating grew from 29 percent after the typhoon to 34 percent, while his disapproval rating dropped 9 percentage points to 45 percent.
The UDN poll was conducted on Monday night and questioned 806 adults.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS