President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) approval rating rose more than 10 percentage points to 54.7 percent in the latest survey released by the Cabinet's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission yesterday.
However, a poll conducted by the opposition party showed that close to 50 percent of respondents were unhappy with the Ma administration's performance over the past year.
The commission's survey — conducted on Monday and Tuesday — showed Ma's approval rating rising to its highest level since his presidential inauguration on May 20 last year.
Past surveys by the commission showed Ma's approval rating slipping to 47 percent in August, or three months after his inauguration, and further to 43.2 percent in November, six months into his presidency.
His approval rating edged up to 43.7 percent in February and climbed to 54.7 percent this month, the commission said.
Ma's disapproval rating also fluctuated during this period — 36.3 percent in August, 50.6 percent in November, 41.2 percent in February and 35.1 percent this month.
The latest survey also showed Premier Liu Chao-shiuan's (劉兆玄) approval rating rising to 45.3 percent, from 41.9 percent, 37.7 percent and 41.4 percent in the previous surveys.
When asked whether they supported Ma, 64.6 percent of respondents gave a positive answer, up from 63.6 percent three months ago, while 25.9 percent said they did not, up from 24.6 percent three months ago.
The poll showed that 61.9 percent of respondents said they had confidence in the Ma administration's governance in the coming year, while 28.8 percent said they did not.
The survey also asked respondents about their perception of government integrity and policies in dealing with cross-strait affairs, attracting foreign investment, diplomacy, transportation, tax reform, care for the disadvantaged, energy saving and reducing carbon emissions, education, environmental protection, stabilizing commodity prices and handling natural disasters.
The survey found the public were most dissatisfied with administrative policies in education, maintaining public order and stabilizing commodity prices, with the disapproval rates in these categories reaching more than 40 percent.
It also showed that 61.1 percent of respondents were satisfied with government efforts to protect the environment, which topped all categories, followed by 58 percent for administrative efforts to promote energy savings and reduce carbon emissions.
On cross-strait relations, 49.8 percent of respondents said they were satisfied, 37.1 percent were dissatisfied and 13.1 percent had no opinion.
In contrast to the commission's survey, a poll conducted and released by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday showed that 49.9 percent of the public disapproved of the government's performance over the past year.
The DPP survey showed that 26.5 percent believed the government cared more about the interests of big businesses, while 18.8 percent said the government favored public workers, 9 percent said laborers and only 3.2 percent said farmers and fishermen.
A total of 1,026 valid samples were collected in the survey, which was conducted between Monday and Wednesday.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY RICH CHANG
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