President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) approval rating has dipped below 50 percent for the first time since she was sworn in on May 20, with her disapproval rating increasing to almost 40 percent, according to a poll published by the Taiwan Indicators Survey Research yesterday.
The poll, conducted on Thursday and Friday among people aged 20 and above, found that the percentage of people who expressed satisfaction with Tsai’s performance has declined from 50.2 percent in late May and 54.6 percent in late June to 45.5 percent.
Her disapproval rating rose from 32.3 percent in last month’s poll to 39.8 percent.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
When Tsai was sworn in, only 16.3 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with her performance, the poll said.
Asked if they have confidence in Tsai, 49.2 percent of those polled said “yes,” a drop of about 10 percentage points from 59.3 percent in the May survey.
The percentage of respondents who do not have confidence in her rose from 20.5 percent to 32.5 percent.
Premier Lin Chuan’s (林全) disapproval rating surpassed his approval rating for the first time, at 40.4 percent and 37.3 percent respectively, the poll showed.
Lin’s disapproval rating in the May survey was 17.4 percent, while 44.8 percent of respondents approved of his performance.
The survey indicated that respondents are divided on the performances of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, who hold 68 of the legislature’s 113 seats.
Forty percent of respondents said DPP lawmakers’ performance was satisfactory, while 44 percent said otherwise.
Despite the numbers, the public seems to be more satisfied with the general performance of the Tsai administration than they were with former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government after its first three months in office in 2008.
The research center also compared its latest poll results with a survey conducted by the Chinese-language monthly Global Views between Aug. 12 and Aug. 15, 2008, to gauge public evaluations of the Ma administration’s performance.
In 2008, 47.6 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with Ma’s performance, while 36.1 percent said they were satisfied.
The approval and disapproval ratings for Ma’s first premier, Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), were 34.2 percent and 45.9 percent respectively, according to that poll.
Respondents to the magazine’s poll were unhappy with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, who occupied 81 seats in 2008, with about 54 percent of those surveyed saying they were not content with the lawmakers’ performance, while 26.3 percent approved.
The poll released yesterday collected 1,003 valid samples and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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