President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) popularity rose slightly last month to 26.6 percent, according to the latest poll by the Chinese-language Global Views (遠見) magazine, an increase of 2.8 percent from a month earlier.
Despite the increase, last month’s figure means that Ma’s approval ratings have remained below 30 percent for 19 consecutive months, since just four months into his term — a disastrous run by any standards.
When Ma swept to power with almost 60 percent of the vote in March 2008, he inherited a functioning democracy and an economy that could almost run on autopilot. The global financial crisis aside, it is hard to fathom how he could have made such a mess of things and how his popularity could fall so far, so fast.
True, the Ma administration has made many serious foulups, including the bungled handling of the melamine-tainted milk scare, Typhoon Morakot rescue and relief efforts and US beef imports.
Nevertheless, memories are short in politics and now that these issues are mostly in the past, one would think his popularity would show at least some signs of returning to a more respectable level.
Instead, it remains even lower than one could imagine, given that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) can usually rely on a hardcore support level of around 40 percent of the electorate.
Despite this, the president remains in denial. In a recent interview, Ma put his dismal approval ratings down to his efforts at “reform.”
It’s hard to fathom what reform he was referring to, but if rewarding incompetence — former premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) and former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) were presented medals after stepping down in disgrace — counts as reform, then the reform efforts are going well.
Try as he might to find excuses, Ma continues to ignore the 500kg gorilla in the room, and the most likely explanation for his current plight is his cross-strait policy.
Since his inauguration, Ma has plunged Taiwan headfirst into China’s bosom.
Whatever Taiwan’s problem, China is the answer, if the Ma administration is to be believed. In his dealings with Beijing, Ma has effectively turned Taiwan into a vassal state of China. This is perfectly illustrated by the WHA observership arrangement — Taiwan gets rewarded with an annual invitation so long as it does nothing to upset Beijing.
Given China’s record of skullduggery and reneging on agreements, Ma should know better than to place all of Taiwan’s eggs in one basket. However, under Ma, Taiwan has placed all of its eggs and even those yet to be laid in China’s untrustworthy hands.
If cross-strait policy is in fact the reason for his unpopularity, then Ma is not willing to admit it, but the fact that Global Views this month chose to omit its regular poll on subjects such as the government’s plan to sign the controversial economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China indicates that this may well be the case.
Still, Ma pushes on blindly with the ECFA plan, hoping to rush through signing it within the next two months. Given his ability to ignore the warning signs, an ECFA looks like it will be signed on time, but should Ma lose his re-election bid in 2012, he will have no one but himself to blame.
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