Nearly 60 percent of Kaohsiung residents disapprove of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) decision to run for president and more than half support holding a vote to recall him, a poll released yesterday by the Green Party Taiwan found.
The poll, for which 1,009 residents aged 20 and older were interviewed on Sunday, found that 58.4 percent disapprove of Han running for president, compared with 32.5 percent who approve.
Asked about the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate’s performance as mayor, 57.8 percent said that they were unhappy with the results of his policies, while 33.9 expressed approval.
Graphic courtesy of the Green Party Taiwan
Respondents were asked to assign a score to Han, who had a final average of 31 out of 100, with as many as 24.8 percent giving him a score of zero.
Amid a coalition of civic groups collecting signatures for a petition to launch a recall vote against Han, a total of 53.8 percent of respondents said that they support the campaign, while 33 percent opposed it.
Most respondents, 76.5 percent, said that they were aware of a march on Saturday in support of the campaign.
While 27.1 percent said that they planned to attend the recall march, 8.9 percent said that they would join a march organized by Han on the same day to celebrate his first anniversary as mayor.
Asked if they approve of the mayor’s decision to hold a march on the same day, 51.9 percent of respondents expressed disapproval, compared with 33.4 percent who said that they approve.
As more than half of the respondents expressed support for recalling Han, “there is a great chance that Han could become the first mayor of a special municipality to be recalled in [the nation’s] history,” Taoyuan City Councilor Wang Hao-yu (王浩宇) said.
In the worst-case scenario for Han, he would lose both the Jan. 11 presidential election and his position as mayor, Wang said.
Han should carefully consider whether his decision to launch a presidential bid only months after taking office was in line with public expectations, Wang added.
The poll’s findings are “a huge confidence boost” for the groups organizing the recall petition and march, said Aaron Yin (尹立), founder of WeCare Kaohsiung and one of the main organizers of the recall campaign.
It shows that Kaohsiung residents have been unhappy with Han over the past year, he said.
WeCare Kaohsiung and other groups would hold the recall march as planned and continue to push for a recall vote, he added.
The poll has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 3.09 percentage points. The results were weighted to fit the population profile.
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