TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Public support for removing a controversial opposition legislator from office appears to be gaining momentum in Taiwan, according to new polling data released Wednesday (April 9). The survey revealed that 45% of respondents now support a formal recall petition targeting Kuomintang (KMT, 國民黨) legislator Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之) in his electoral district, with an even more substantial 67% of constituents expressing willingness to participate in a recall vote should the petition gather enough signatures to trigger the second stage of Taiwan's recall process.
The comprehensive survey, conducted by the National Security Research Institute (國家安全研究學會), a Taiwanese think tank focused on political and security issues, painted a troubling picture for the embattled legislator. The data revealed that 42.6% of constituents expressed dissatisfaction with Yeh's performance in office, significantly outweighing the 34.4% who indicated satisfaction with his representation. When asked about their voting intentions in a hypothetical immediate recall election, 45.2% of respondents stated they would support removing Yeh from office, while 38.2% would vote against the recall measure.
Political analysts have identified several factors contributing to the legislator's vulnerability. Chen Shih-min (陳世民), a prominent political science professor, attributed Yeh's high disapproval ratings primarily to his frequent television appearances as a partisan defender of the KMT, Taiwan's main opposition party, rather than focusing on constituent services. This sentiment was echoed by Professor Fan Shih-ping (范世平), who characterized the substantial percentage of voters willing to participate in a recall as a clear indication of Yeh's remarkable unpopularity among his own constituents.
The political scientist delved deeper into the legislator's precarious position, explaining that Yeh's vulnerability stems from multiple factors beyond his media presence. Chen pointed to the lawmaker's razor-thin margin of victory in the previous election as a foundational weakness, further compounded by serious allegations regarding police intimidation tactics and questionable employment practices that have systematically eroded his credibility among voters. In his analysis of the electoral mathematics, Chen emphasized the daunting challenge facing the embattled legislator, calculating that Yeh would need to successfully mobilize approximately 75% of his previous supporters to survive the recall attempt — a political feat the professor characterized as "almost impossible" under current circumstances.
The methodologically rigorous survey, conducted over a three-day period from March 31 to April 2, employed stratified random sampling techniques to ensure representative results across demographic groups. Researchers targeted adult residents over 20 years of age in Banqiao District (板橋區), a densely populated urban area within New Taipei City that constitutes Yeh's electoral constituency. With a substantial sample size of 1,071 respondents, the poll's findings provide statistically significant evidence of the legislator's increasingly tenuous political position amid what appears to be a groundswell of constituent dissatisfaction.
