The second round of the recall movement has seen a major drop in support, with nearly 30 percent more respondents expressing opposition than support in a poll released today by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation.
On Aug. 23, seven additional recall proposals targeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are set to take place, following last month’s first round that saw none of the 24 recall motions pass.
This decrease in support marks a dramatic shift in political sentiment, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Asked whether they supported the recall targeting KMT lawmakers, 16.9 percent of respondents expressed “strong support,” 14.8 percent expressed “some support,” 24 percent expressed “some opposition” and 37.4 percent expressed “strong opposition.”
Another 5.4 percent expressed no opinion, and 1.5 percent said they did not know or refused to answer.
Nationwide, 32 percent of respondents expressed any amount of support, while 61 percent expressed opposition — a 29.7 percent difference.
Looking at the seven areas set to hold a recall this month — Taichung, New Taipei City, Nantou City and Hsinchu County — only 16.7 percent expressed strong support, 11.7 some support, 27.8 percent some opposition and 38.2 percent strong opposition.
About 4.3 percent expressed no opinion and 1.3 percent did not know or answer.
In those areas, overall support was at 28 percent compared with 66 percent for the opposition, a gap of 37.6 percent and even greater than the difference for nationwide respondents.
Compared with the foundation’s poll last month, nationwide support has dropped by 10 percentage points, while opposition has increased by 13.4 percentage points, widening the gap between the two positions to more than five times its size last month.
If each percentage point represents about 195,000 people, that would be a nearly 2 million-person decrease in support for the recalls and a 2.6 million increase in opposition.
These results reflect mainstream public attitudes about the recall’s failure, You said.
Over time, it is likely that support would continue to decrease while opposition increases, he added.
The survey was conducted between Monday and Wednesday last week, with the 1,079 respondents weighted to reflect region, age, gender and education level distribution according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of the Interior.
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