Tainan Mayor William Lai’s (賴清德) approval rating has reached 76 percent, leading 12 other political leaders in the nation, due to positive public reaction to his performance during rescue efforts following the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that devastated parts of Tainan, according to a recent poll.
Lai, who only had an approval rating of 39 percent in the previous poll conducted by local TV network TVBS’ poll center in September last year, ranked first among 13 of the nation’s political leaders, followed by Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), whose approval rating increased by 12 percentage points from the last survey to 73 percent.
President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) came in the third with an approval rating of 63 percent, which was also an increase of 12 percentage points.
Photo: Hung Jui-chin
All three are Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members.
Popular but controversial Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) saw his approval rating fall by 3 percentage points to 57 percent to finish fourth.
Poll debutant Premier Simon Chang (張善政) finished fifth with a 54 percent approval rating, the highest among pan-blue politicians.
Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), who just finished organizing this year’s Taiwan Lantern Festival, which saw record-high attendance, ranked sixth with a 48 percent approval rating, with Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) trailing by a small margin at 47 percent in seventh place.
Both Cheng and Lin are also DPP members.
Former deputy legislative speaker and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairperson candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) finished in eighth with a 45 percent approval rating, a decrease of 9 percentage points compared with the September poll.
Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), the first DPP member in the position, ranked ninth at 44 percent.
New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) ranked 10th, following another consecutive decline in approval rating to 31 percent. Chu’s approval rating was 60 percent in 2014 and 41 percent in the September survey.
The last three political figures in the ranking were former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) at 26 percent, followed by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) with 24 percent and Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) with 20 percent. The poll marks the first time Ma’s approval rating has surpassed 20 percent since his second term started in 2012.
The survey was conducted by the TVBS poll center from March 1 to Friday last week, with 1,047 valid samples collected by telephone from people over the age of 20 selected at random nationwide.
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
RSS