President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) approval rating has plummeted to its lowest level since the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot in 2009 amid recent controversies over US beef and avian flu, a recent poll showed.
Only 26.1 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with Ma’s performance, with 62.1 percent disapproving of the president, the survey conducted by Taiwan Brain Trust think tank on Wednesday and Thursday showed.
Those figures were the lowest since August 2009, when Ma’s approval ratings dropped to 16 percent after his handling of Morakot, the deadliest typhoon in Taiwan’s history, which killed hundreds of Taiwanese, the think tank said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
“The numbers signal a crisis for the Ma administration and, as you can see, the situation is getting worse,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said.
Responses to almost all the questions asked in the survey were unfavorable to Ma. More than half of respondents said they were unhappy with his performance over US beef imports, the H5N2 avian flu outbreak, rising commodity prices and tax reform.
On the recent US beef controversy, 54.8 percent of respondents questioned Ma’s integrity, because he pledged not to lift the ban on the growth additive ractopamine during the election campaign. A total of 67.7 percent disapproved of the government’s conditional lifting of the ban.
When asked about the alleged cover-up of an avian flu outbreak, 54.1 percent of respondents said they believed that government agencies had deliberately concealed information and 73.8 percent said the government’s handling of the outbreak was unacceptable.
These results suggest two problems in the Ma administration — lack of integrity and incompetence, Lin said.
Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒), a professor at National Dong Hwa University, said Ma’s role in the recent controversies reflected a serious flaw in Taiwan’s Constitution.
At the beginning of his term in office, Ma was able to sit in the Presidential Office and do nothing, while claiming to be simply -fulfilling a role regulated by the Constitution, whereas he now “seems have his hands on everything” and is ignoring the Executive Yuan, Shih said.
According to the survey, Ma’a approval ratings never exceeded 40 percent after May 2009, one year after he took office.
Shih also highlighted the implications of answers to one of the survey questions, namely that 76.6 percent of respondents believed that public health was more important than relations with the US.
“It appears to me that people are more hostile to the US than they were and the Ma administration is going to have to work even harder to mend relations with Washington in the future,” he said.
Shih also said that former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), an experienced negotiator on trade issues who is familiar with international affairs, should have been playing a more prominent role for the DPP during the recent controversies over US beef and avian flu.
The survey, which collected 1,116 samples and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent, also found that 53.1 percent of respondents were not satisfied with the new Cabinet led by Premier Sean Chen (陳冲).
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique