President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) credibility has hit a new low with more than 60 percent of respondents in a public opinion survey released yesterday saying he is an “over-packaged product.”
The public’s view of Ma’s integrity has dipped further with negative responses about his image increasing by up to 8.5 percentage points on the same survey conducted by Taiwan Indicator Survey Research last year.
Ma’s latest 20.1 percent credibility rating was only slightly better than former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) at his worst mark of 17.7 percent, when Chen was embroiled in the 2006 corruption scandal. This is despite Ma and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enjoying a strong legislative majority and control of the executive branch.
In the poll, 62.9 percent of the respondents found Ma untrustworthy and 74.1 percent disapproved of his performance.
In a series of questions about Ma’s “brand image,” 63.9 percent of respondents said he was “over-packaged,” 58.8 percent said his abilities were “exaggerated” and 47 percent saw him as “an expired, deteriorating product.”
Numbers to the same questions in May last year increased by between 3.3 and 8.5 percentage points, showing that “Ma has become more unpopular,” a TISR press release showed.
With Ma being the only candidate in the KMT chairmanship election next week, 59.6 percent of respondents said his insistence on doubling as the president and KMT chairman was inappropriate, while 20.8 percent said it was appropriate and 19.6 percent declined to answer.
KMT supporters appeared to be struggling with Ma’s decision, TISR said, as a further breakdown found that 43.5 percent of the KMT supporters deemed it appropriate and 40.1 percent said otherwise.
However, the survey found that more than half of KMT supporters still opted to support Ma in the chairman election, with 53 percent saying that they would vote for him “to show KMT solidarity” and 33.2 percent saying that they preferred to cast invalid ballots “to warn Ma and give him a lesson.”
Asked whether his doubling as KMT chairman would help him fight corruption and rebuild the party’s image, 72.4 percent of those polled gave negative answers, while 12.6 percent was positive and 15.1 percent did not answer.
The poll, conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, collected 1,005 valid samples and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Citigroup Inc plans to exit retail banking in 13 markets across Asia, and the region of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The bank would instead operate its consumer-banking franchise in both regions from four wealth centers in Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and London, it said yesterday in a statement. The move is part of an ongoing review of the company’s strategy by chief executive officer Jane Fraser, who took over last month. “This positions us to capture the strong growth and attractive returns the wealth-management business offers through these important hubs,” Fraser said. Citigroup is to exit its consumer
‘IMPORTANT PARTNER’: The new guidelines aim to encourage US engagement with Taiwan, which reflects a deepening relationship, the US Department of State said The US Department of State on Friday issued new guidelines governing US officials’ interactions with their Taiwanese counterparts, a move welcomed by Taipei as turning a new page in bilateral relations. Shortly before leaving office, then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Jan. 9 announced the cancelation of previous contact guidelines, which he said were “self-imposed restrictions” that attempted to appease the Chinese Communist Party regime in Beijing. However, the status of the guidelines has been unclear since US President Joe Biden entered the White House. Asked about the issue during a legislative session on Thursday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu
CONFIDENTIAL: The trip had not been made public until just before ex-senator Chris Dodd, and ex-state department officials Richard Armitage and James Steinberg arrived The government yesterday welcomed an “unofficial” delegation sent by US President Joe Biden, while another delegation led by US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry was headed to Shanghai. Biden’s first delegation to Taiwan is made up of former US senator Chris Dodd, and former US deputy secretaries of state Richard Armitage and James Steinberg. They are to stay in Taiwan until tomorrow. Their arrival, on a chartered flight, had been kept confidential until media reported the visit yesterday morning, after which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a short notice that they were expected to arrive at 2:40pm. The flight landed at
‘IDEAL FIT’: A report on Sunday said that the Canadian government threatened to pull its support and funding from the HFX if the award was given to the president The government would respect the decision of the organizer of the John McCain Prize for Leadership in Public Service on whether it plans to award a prize to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. The statement was issued after US Web site Politico reported a day earlier that the Canadian government had warned the Halifax International Security Forum (HFX) not to give the award to Tsai for fear of provoking Beijing. “The ministry believes that if the Halifax International Security Forum confers the prize upon President Tsai, it would be an affirmation and honor for both
RSS