Prompted by the Executive Yuan's anti-corruption plan and the calls from political figures to stamp out corruption, Sinorama has specially conducted a questionnaire-based opinion poll of people chosen at random from the Taipei City telephone directory. The effective sample was 258 people. From the results we can see that ordinary people see politicians' moral integrity as very important, and will also take it into consideration in the elections due at the end of this year.

It is noteworthy that in reply to the first question, almost half (48%) of those interviewed chose the answer "moral integrity" as the most important quality for an election candidate. This score was almost 20 percentage points higher than the second ranking answer "ability" (28.7%). The second question gave even stronger evidence of the strength of popular wishes: as many as 62.8% of interviewees would regard whether or not a candidate is "clean" as the most important consideration in the year-end elections.

When asked about politicians' claims to support clean government, 23.6% of interviewees clearly discerned this as a new force in politics, but even more people preferred to reserve judgement. It would appear that politicians have more work to do if they wish to win the public's confidence.

As to which figures are seen as most representative of this trend, the person named most often was Legislator Wang Chien-Hsuen (64 times), followed by Legislators Chen Shui-pien (41 times) and Chao Shao-kang (39 times). But the large number (5l) of "not sures" and "don't knows" shows that many people are none too certain on this point.

When asked what qualities they expected in members of the anti-corruption movement, as many as 40% replied that it was enough for them to act fairly and cleanly in office; their origins and background, posts held with commercial enterprises and their morality in their private lives were all secondary considerations. Thus it seems that the requirements the public in Taiwan places on its politicians are fairly reasonable and equitable.

With respect to the Sunlight Law and the Anti-Corruption Plan, it is worth noting that despite the wide reporting of these initiatives in the media, 23.9% of interviewees firmly believed that the laws would not really be implemented, and would not have any effect, showing that the government's level of public credibility leaves something to be desired.

Finally, almost seven out of ten of those surveyed regarded building a clean society as the responsibility of "everyone." If this is really so, one can be optimistic about the prospects for building a clean society.

During the interviews the members of the public we spoke to responded passionately when the topic of "clean government" was raised. Some earnestly pleaded for the ruling party to actively and unswervingly fight corruption, while others praised highly the political figures they themselves regarded as "clean"; but there were also some who did not have much faith in politicians' claims to support clean government.

Thus it would appear that the concrete results of the government's anti-corruption efforts will be a crucial factor for reform in the practice of government.