President William Lai’s (賴清德) trust rating has risen to 58.9 percent, his approval rating has reached 54.4 percent and more than half of the people surveyed, 50.3 percent, have a favorable impression of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a My-Formosa.com poll released last month showed.
While all three categories rose for Lai and the DPP, approval ratings for Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) fell to just 21.9 percent, while the party’s disapproval rating rose to a record high of 65.3 percent.
The reason for the change in the parties’ ratings is simple. When it comes to politics, people do not live in a fantasy world.
They are not so hypercritical as to expect that a political party can never have members that break the law, they just expect that those people would honestly face the public about their mistakes.
Politics without honesty has no substance. Without sincerity, nothing is left. Parties that refuse to wholeheartedly admit fault would only continue to commit crimes. They would never take the supervision, expectations or hopes of the public seriously.
Since Lai assumed office, DPP members have been involved in a string of political incidents. Former vice premier Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) was taken into custody on corruption charges involving a land development project, former minister of transportation and communications Li Meng-yen (李孟諺) resigned from his post following rumors of an extramarital affair and, most recently, DPP Legislator Lin I-chin (林宜瑾) posted NT$1 million (US$31,309) bail after being investigated for suspected involvement in embezzlement.
Political opponents have interpreted the incidents as party infighting, saying that some of those involved were close to Lai.
Even in such an unfavorable environment, Lai’s trust rating and the DPP’s approval rating have risen. The main reason is that Lai has not tried to hide his party’s faults, hinder their response efforts or meddle in their cases. He has let go and allowed the investigations to proceed without interference. If fault is found, the accused would face legal action. If none is found, then they should be exonerated.
Values and ideas are the flesh and blood of a political party, as well as assets for survival. Politicians must courageously face issues as they arise rather than avoiding them or attempting to shirk responsibility.
As for Ko, his party continues to provide murky answers regarding an election finance scandal. The issue is getting increasingly clouded as time goes on, and their attempted cover-up has only made matters worse. The public has completely lost their trust in Ko.
The party which has persistently pushed for generational and residential justice has been reduced to a political laughing stock. Ko consistently refuses to sincerely confront his mistakes, preferring to spin more lies to conceal his previous ones.
People expect politicians to have the courage to honestly confront issues, not avoid accountability and provide barely satisfactory responses.
Chen Chi-nung is a political commentator.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS