President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) popularity dropped for a second straight month, a poll by the Chinese-language Global Views magazine showed yesterday.
The poll, conducted by the Global Views Survey Research Center, put Ma’s popularity at 30.1 percent, down 0.9 percentage points from last month. His disapproval rating also dropped 1.4 percent to stand at 55.6 percent.
Ma secured a mandate of 58.45 percent in the presidential election two years ago. However, his approval rating has mostly remained below 40 percent since then, reaching its highest level of 40.7 percent in June last year.
Center director Tai Li-an (戴立安) said that although Ma’s disapproval rating fell slightly this month, it did not translate into greater popularity.
“The public is seeing no major events happening after Taipei and Beijing signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [ECFA] in June,” he said. “Some might trust Ma, but they are not happy with his performance.”
Since the poll was conducted before Typhoon Fanapi hit the nation over the weekend and caused severe flooding in southern Taiwan, Tai said it remained to be seen whether this would affect public opinion.
The poll also showed that 41.4 percent of respondents did not trust Ma, against about 40 percent who did. As the difference between the two figures was small, Tai said it represented a divergence of public views on the issue.
Despite the uproar over the upcoming Taipei International Flora Exposition, Tai said the poll showed] the controversy had not had much impact on Ma’s trust index, although the event was awarded when Ma was Taipei mayor. Nor did the November local elections have any effect on levels of trust in Ma, Tai said.
On the performance of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, more than 58 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied, against 19.4 percent who said they were satisfied.
The poll, conducted between Wednesday and Friday, questioned 1,011 adults and had a margin of error of 3.1 percent.
In related news, Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) yesterday criticized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for its attacks on the flora expo, saying the party used the same tactic when swine flu hit last year.
Lo said that had it not been for the DPP’s “relentless” efforts to “defame” the government’s plan to tackle the matter, more people would have been willing to receive a vaccine and more lives would have been saved.
Forty-six people in Taiwan have died of swine flu since the outbreak began last year.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS