President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has recorded the lowest approval rating since his inauguration in 2008, with his Cabinet members also struggling to win approval, a public opinion survey released yesterday showed.
Ma’s latest approval rating of 12.8 percent was the lowest yet in a tracking poll that began when Ma took office in May 2008: 75.2 percent of respondents said they were not satisfied with the president’s performance, according to the Taiwan Indicators Survey Research (TISR) poll.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) had an approval rating of 17.8 percent, up 1.9 percentage points from last month, and a disapproval rating of 57.6 percent.
The survey, which focused on the performances of 15 Cabinet members, found that the respondents were either unfamiliar with the officials or unhappy with their performance, with the percentages of the answer “no impression about this official” ranging from 39.1 percent to 71 percent.
For those who were familiar with specific Cabinet members, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) was the least popular official with a 43.3 percent disapproval rating, followed by Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) at 33.6 percent and Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) at 32.1 percent.
Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Kuan Chung-min (管中閔) ranked fourth with a 28.8 percent disapproval rating, and Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) was the fifth-least popular with a 26.7 percent disapproval rating.
However, respondents’ opinions toward Lee and Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) were split, as Lee also received the highest approval rating of 27 percent among the 15 members, while Lung had an approval rating of 26.7 percent and a disapproval rating of 25.8 percent.
No Cabinet members other than Lee and Lung received approval ratings higher than 12.1 percent.
A further breakdown found that 48.6 percent of those who identified themselves as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supporters approved of Lee’s performance and 46.2 percent supported Lung, according to the TISR.
The poll, conducted on Sunday and Monday, collected 1,006 valid samples and had a margin of error of 3.1 percent.
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