Close to 50 percent of respondents in a National Development Council (NDC) poll are dissatisfied with the student-led Sunflower movement against the cross-strait service trade pact, while 37 percent said they did not support the students’ decision to launch the protests in the first place.
The survey results released yesterday showed that of the 96 percent of respondents who said they were aware of the trade pact, 46 percent were not satisfied with the protesters’ actions.
Student activists took over the main chamber of Legislative Yuan in Taipei on March 18, a day after a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker moved to pass the trade pact out of the committee review and on to the next stage of its review — putting it to a floor vote. The protesters said the KMT had broken its agreement with the opposition caucuses to conduct a clause-by-clause review of the pact.
Photo: CNA
The poll found that 26 percent of respondents favor the institutionalization of an oversight mechanism for cross-strait negotiations before continuing with the legislative review of the service trade pact, while 49 percent felt the review should go hand-in-hand with such legislation.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) call for a cross-strait negotiation supervision act to be passed by the end of the current legislative session was supported by 47 percent of respondents, while 32 percent opposed it.
When asked about the service trade pact itself, 28 percent of respondents said it should be scrapped entirely, while 56 percent felt it should be submitted to a clause-by-clause review before any decision is taken.
According to the poll, nearly as many respondents were in favor of signing and ratifying the pact (41 percent) as against it (about 40 percent).
Regarding the pact’s impact on cross-strait economic ties, 39 percent of respondents said it would help Taiwan’s tertiary sector make inroads into the Chinese market, while 30 percent disagreed. Forty-four percent felt the pact would help the nation’s economy, but 38 percent felt otherwise.
On the forcible removal of student protesters from inside and outside the Executive Yuan on Monday last week, 69 percent of respondents said they did not condone the move and 13 percent said they agreed with the students’ actions.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) ordered the eviction after a group of students tried to take over the Executive Yuan on March 23 as part of the protests against the service trade pact.
Critics say police used excessive force in removing the protesters, but 63 percent of the poll respondents felt the removal was justified, while 23 percent disagreed.
Forty-four percent said the eviction fell within the police’s mandate to protect government institutions, but 32 percent felt it had been an example of bloody suppression.
Asked about the students occupying the legislative chamber, 58 percent of respondents said they should withdraw to allow the legislature to resume operations, while 27 percent backed a continued occupation.
The survey was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday and 1,084 valid samples were collected. The poll had a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
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