President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) approval rating hit a new low of 9.2 percent, the first time the rating has dipped to to single-digits, in a public opinion poll released yesterday amid widespread public dissatisfaction with Ma’s role in ongoing political strife within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Only 9.2 percent of the respondents said they were satisfied with Ma’s performance in his second term, which began in May last year, while 80.5 percent of those polled disapproved of his performance and 10.3 percent declined to comment, according to the poll conducted by ERA Survey Research Center, a subsidiary of ERA Television.
Asked if they have confidence about Ma’s leadership in the remainder of his term, 72 percent of the respondents said no, while 16.1 percent said yes and 11.9 percent declined to comment.
In another poll, released by TVBS last week, Ma had an approval rating of 11 percent, between 2 and 6 percentage points down from his rating of between 13 and 17 percent in the past six months.
Even former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who is serving a 20-year prison term for corruption, at the height of and in the aftermath of his corruption scandal never registered single-digit approval ratings.
The survey, conducted on Friday and Saturday, also asked respondents about political turmoil in the KMT surrounding the revoking of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) party membership after Wang was accused of illegal lobbying by Ma.
Almost two-thirds, or 63.2 percent, of those polled were not satisfied with the way Ma, who is also KMT chairman, had handled the controversy, while 49.9 percent of respondents said Wang had dealt with the incident well.
Almost half — 49.2 percent — of the respondents said they would support a recall campaign against Ma because the president had infringed on human rights and jeopardized the constitutional system, with 34.7 percent opposing a recall and 16.1 percent saying they have no opinion.
Wang, whose KMT membership is in question, despite a court ruling upholding his request for an injunction to retain his membership temporarily, appeared to receive solid support from the respondents as 50 percent of those polled said they would not support Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Shiu-chu (洪秀柱) replacing Wang, even if Wang was eventually stripped of his speaker position.
Regarding Wang’s future, 34 percent of respondents said the 72-year-old should do his best to stay with the KMT, with 20.4 percent calling for Wang’s retirement from politics and 86 percent urging him to establish a new political party.
The poll collected 1,039 valid samples and had a margin of errors of 3 percentage points.
Meanwhile, Ma posted a message on his Facebook yesterday saying that national stability and smooth governance were key, but that efforts to uphold equality and justice, and the maintenance of judicial independence, should not be ignored.
Undue influence by senior officials in legal cases is a question that is clearly on either the side of right, or wrong, Ma wrote.
There is no neutral ground or gray area on the matter, and I would not compromise on this stance, Ma wrote, adding that this was his solemn promise to the people.
Additional reporting by Jake Chung
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying