A majority of people believe that legislators, regardless of their party affiliation, place their parties, families, factions or specific interest groups far above the needs of the public, a public opinion poll showed yesterday.
The survey, conducted by Taiwan Indicator Survey Research (TISR), found that only 16.7 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the performance of lawmakers, while 61.5 percent said they were unsatisfied and 33.3 percent did not answer.
More than half, or 57.2 percent, of those polled said the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) legislative majority was not helpful to effective governance by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, a TISR press release said.
Asked for whose benefit KMT lawmakers worked, 26.4 percent of respondents said they worked primarily for their party, followed by 19.7 percent who cited businesses and specific groups, while families and factions was chosen by 18.7 percent.
Only 7.5 percent of respondents said that KMT lawmakers strived for the benefit of the public, slightly above the 7.1 percent who said lawmakers work for voters in their constituencies.
Respondents’ impressions of the Democratic Progresive Party (DPP) were similar, with 26.3 percent saying that the party mattered most to DPP lawmakers, while 17.3 percent said DPP lawmakers sought advantages for their families and factions.
However, in contrast with the KMT, 16 percent of respondents said that DPP legislators cared most about the welfare of the public, while 8 percent of those polled said DPP lawmakers sought benefits for businesses and specific interests groups.
According to the poll, 55.6 percent of respondents have forgotten who they voted for in the legislative elections in January last year, with only 23.6 percent remembering who they voted for.
The survey also showed that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) credibility rating of 21.4 percent was the lowest since he was first inaugurated in May 2008, while his approval rating stood at a low 17.3 percent.
Meanwhile, the disapproval rating for Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), at 47.3 percent, was the highest since he took the post in February, the poll found.
The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, collected 1,005 valid samples and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
SPEEDING ELETRIC VEHICLES: Available without license requirements, the low-cost vehicles, especially if illicitly modified, can often reach a dangerous speed The government should crack down on illegal electric bicycles and scooters, the non-profit Consumers’ Foundation said on Friday, citing research on the potentially dangerous speed of the vehicles. Electric bicycles and lightweight electric scooters have gained popularity as they do not require registration and riders do not need licenses, the foundation said, adding that as many as 40 percent of them can reach speeds exceeding the legal limit of 25kph for non-licensed two-wheelers. Some consumers also purchased legal electric vehicles and modified them to reach higher speeds, it said. “If the government does not step up efforts to confiscate these
NEW CASE REPORTED: A man who returned from South Africa on a flight with the nation’s 460th and 461st cases has now tested positive for the disease The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that there is no need to test all arrivals to the nation for COVID-19, a policy the Executive Yuan supports. The center reported one new imported case, bringing the nation’s tally of confirmed cases to 477. The new case is a Taiwanese man in his 60s who on July 25 returned from South Africa, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is also the CECC’s spokesman. The man had returned to Taiwan on the same flight as cases Nos. 460 and 461, reported on July 27, Chuang said. On July 24,
More than half of Taiwan’s middle-aged population, those aged between 40 and 64, have at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar — and an unhealthy waist size, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said, adding that more than 30 percent also have metabolic syndrome. The HPA, the Taiwan Millennium Health Foundation and local health departments are cooperating to encourage people to regularly measure their waist circumference and keep it at a healthy size — no more than 90cm for adult men and no more than 80cm for adult women. Taichung Veterans General
‘RELIABLE PARTNER’: US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar praised the ‘Taiwan model,’ saying that the nation brought its spirit to its COVID-19 response The first memorandum of understanding (MOU) on health cooperation between the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the US Department of Health and Human Services was yesterday signed at the Centers for Disease Control in Taipei. The memorandum was signed between the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, by AIT Director Brent Christensen and Taiwan Council for US Affairs Chairperson Jen-ni Yang (楊珍妮). US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) witnessed the signing of the memorandum, designed to enhance the nations’
RSS