Twenty months into his term, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has seen his approval ratings tumble almost monthly, with the latest poll by Global Views magazine’s survey research center hitting a new low of 23.2 percent.
In an obvious attempt to woo back supporters, Ma traveled to Hualien on Sunday and paid a special visit to Chiang Mei-hua (江美華), a Ma fan who drew the attention of the media — and the Presidential Office — after her son disclosed on his blog that his mom had lost her admiration for Ma because of the government’s poor performance.
An obviously thrilled Chiang said after Ma’s visit that the president was now back among her top three idols, along with Hong Kong movie star Andy Lau (劉德華) and South Korean star Bae Yong-joon. Obviously the other two men have never given a disappointing performance in her books.
It is good to see Ma respond to his sinking popularity.
However, while it may be satisfying to know he can still charm older women who idolize him — and the rest of his legion of female fans — Ma should remember that as head of state, the competence of his government is what matters.
Ma should work on improving the government’s performance as a whole instead of trying to charm his way out of public dissatisfaction.
In an interview with the Taipei Times last week, Ma reiterated his pledge to be the “people’s president” (全民總統), rejecting criticism that having doubled up as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman he had become a “pan-blue president,” placing partisan interests above public concerns.
A glance at his planned itinerary, however, suggests otherwise.
The KMT has announced that after Ma returns from his current Latin American trip, he will begin a nationwide tour next month in his capacity as KMT chairman to campaign for party candidates as well as to seek better communication with local party members.
Visits to several juancun (眷村), or veterans’ villages, are planned. This party tour will be stretched out over several months in the run-up to the special municipality elections at the end of the year.
It appears that Ma is focusing his attention on rallying KMT supporters to consolidate their sympathy for him.
If Ma really saw himself as a “people’s president,” he would be paying attention to things of far greater importance than the feelings of uncommitted voters in by-elections.
What Ma may have yet to realize is that the true crisis in his administration lies not in the short-term temper tantrum thrown by his supporters, but in the spreading lack of confidence the public has in the government as a whole.
If Ma is only interested in appeasing pan-blue supporters and remains oblivious to the rest, he will continue to disappoint the majority, which in turn will lead to further damage to his approval ratings.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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