A landmark Internet poll on the effectiveness of the Beijing city government has ended with overwhelming numbers voicing a high level of dissatisfaction with the work of the city's political leaders.
The survey, which ran from Nov. 11 to Dec. 5 on the city government's Web site, saw some 126,000 respondents separately rate the government's 60 departments on a degree of satisfaction.
Participants effectively were allowed to voice their concern with ongoing urban problems, including increasingly snarled traffic jams, the city's often arbitrary requisitioning of land and an ineffective mechanism to voice complaints.
Beijing's early attempt to cover up the SARS outbreak and a slow response by hospitals to contain it in the capital, which was the world's hardest hit city, also led to the city's health department winning a low level of support.
The city's traffic bureau had the worst rating with 87 percent of respondents dissatisfied, while the urban planning commission was close behind with a dissatisfaction rating of 86 percent.
Rounding out the worst departments were the health bureau with a 76 percent dissatisfaction rating, followed by the complaints bureau and the industrial and commercial bureau with ratings of 74 percent and 73 percent respectively.
However, things were not all bad, with the city's tax bureau snaring the highest approval rating of 61 percent.
This was followed by the township enterprise bureau with a 53 percent approval rating and the education office which had 51 percent rating.
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