Faced with a consistently low approval rating, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration should have a sense of crisis and strive to boost the economy, raise the employment rate and increase salary levels to win back the public’s support, a group of national policy advisers were quoted as saying at a meeting with the president on Friday.
The gathering, which was attended by nearly 40 advisers, was the latest in a series of similar meetings Ma has held this month with Cabinet members and senior and national policy advisers to hear suggestions on national policies amid growing public discontent over the government’s performance.
Several polls conducted in the latter half of this year found Ma’s approval rating lingering near the 20 percent mark — and sometimes even dropping below 15 percent.
“The administration’s performance in terms of policymaking has been received negatively by the public, in part because of the aftermath caused by its decision to raise fuel prices and electricity rates,” former Greater Taichung Council chairman and national policy adviser Lin Jen-te (林仁德) quoted a number of advisers as saying.
With more than three years left in Ma’s second term as president, his administration must strive to improve a lackluster economy and alleviate the public’s financial plight by being sensitive to and formulating policies that meet their needs, Lin quoted the advisers as saying.
They also urged Ma to adopt well-rounded complementary measures before enacting a national policy, while warning the president against what they described as a lack of discretion among some Cabinet and government officials when making comments pertaining to government policies, Lin said.
The Ma administration has given the public the perception that Ma lacks decisiveness and is constantly “dragging his feet” when making policy decisions, national policy adviser Lee Tsung-chi (李總集) said, as evidenced by its contentious handling of issues related to the year-end bonus for government retirees and the lifting of a ban on US beef containing the livestock feed additive ractopamine.
Singling out the US beef controversy, Lee said the Ma administration could have avoided criticism that it made contradictory remarks, if it had been frank with the public from the onset by admitting that the government was indeed under US pressure to relax the import ban.
However, national policy adviser Tsai Ling-lan (蔡鈴蘭), who did not join Friday’s meeting because of a scheduling conflict, said grassroots opinions were divided on the Ma administration’s performance.
“There are people who defend the government by attributing the nation’s poor economic performance to a sluggish global environment, while others lambast Ma for driving up commodity prices,” Tsai said.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
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