President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) approval rating has dipped below 50 percent for the first time since she was sworn in on May 20, with her disapproval rating increasing to almost 40 percent, according to a poll published by the Taiwan Indicators Survey Research yesterday.
The poll, conducted on Thursday and Friday among people aged 20 and above, found that the percentage of people who expressed satisfaction with Tsai’s performance has declined from 50.2 percent in late May and 54.6 percent in late June to 45.5 percent.
Her disapproval rating rose from 32.3 percent in last month’s poll to 39.8 percent.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
When Tsai was sworn in, only 16.3 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with her performance, the poll said.
Asked if they have confidence in Tsai, 49.2 percent of those polled said “yes,” a drop of about 10 percentage points from 59.3 percent in the May survey.
The percentage of respondents who do not have confidence in her rose from 20.5 percent to 32.5 percent.
Premier Lin Chuan’s (林全) disapproval rating surpassed his approval rating for the first time, at 40.4 percent and 37.3 percent respectively, the poll showed.
Lin’s disapproval rating in the May survey was 17.4 percent, while 44.8 percent of respondents approved of his performance.
The survey indicated that respondents are divided on the performances of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, who hold 68 of the legislature’s 113 seats.
Forty percent of respondents said DPP lawmakers’ performance was satisfactory, while 44 percent said otherwise.
Despite the numbers, the public seems to be more satisfied with the general performance of the Tsai administration than they were with former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government after its first three months in office in 2008.
The research center also compared its latest poll results with a survey conducted by the Chinese-language monthly Global Views between Aug. 12 and Aug. 15, 2008, to gauge public evaluations of the Ma administration’s performance.
In 2008, 47.6 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with Ma’s performance, while 36.1 percent said they were satisfied.
The approval and disapproval ratings for Ma’s first premier, Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), were 34.2 percent and 45.9 percent respectively, according to that poll.
Respondents to the magazine’s poll were unhappy with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, who occupied 81 seats in 2008, with about 54 percent of those surveyed saying they were not content with the lawmakers’ performance, while 26.3 percent approved.
The poll released yesterday collected 1,003 valid samples and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS