President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) public confidence index this month dropped below 50 percent following Saturday’s special municipality elections, placing him far behind Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the latest poll released by the Chinese-language Global Views Monthly magazine showed.
The poll, conducted by the Global Views Survey Research Center, put Ma’s confidence index at 47.5 points on a scale of 0 to 100, a drop of 2.6 points from last month. Ma’s confidence index had risen to 50.1 last month, the highest since August last year, when it plunged to 42 in the wake of Typhoon Morakot.
Tsai’s trust level for this month, meanwhile, rose 2.2 points to 51.2, a new high since April this year. The confidence level in her party also rose by 0.4 points to 41.7.
Pollsters said the nearly 10-point difference between the public’s confidence in Tsai and the DPP was noteworthy.
It remained to be seen whether the gap would widen, they said.
Confidence in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), for which Ma doubles as chairman, dropped 2.3 points to 43.7 this month. Premier Wu Den-yih’s (吳敦義) trust index also sank 1.1 points to 45.5 this month.
Meanwhile, amid speculation that he could team up with Ma in the 2012 presidential election, Wu would not deny the possibility, but said it was “too early to tell.”
“Why is it that people are -talking about [the 2012 presidential election] when there is still plenty of time before the election? It’s too early to tell,” Wu said when approached by reporters for a comment on a Ma-Wu presidential ticket, an idea that has been touted by some KMT members.
Wu said he had no time to think about such matters, adding that his No. 1 priority was letting the public know that the economy has rebounded.
“There is still a long way to go to consolidate the robustness of the economic recovery,” he said.
Turning to Saturday’s election, Wu said he and Ma had a long talk on Sunday night regarding the implications of the results for the government.
The KMT held on to three seats in Taipei City, Sinbei City and Greater Taichung, but lost the overall popular vote to the DPP by 400,000 votes.
“Voters told us in the election that they were supporting us one more time, but they thought that we were not doing as well and have to do better. President Ma shares those feelings,” Wu said.
One area where the KMT had a particularly poor showing was in the south, where the party said it would cultivate new talent.
KMT spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) quoted party Secretary--General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) as saying that the KMT must nurture new talent in Greater Kaohsiung and Greater Tainan and accumulate political capital in Taipei, Sinbei and Greater Taichung.
King made the remarks after chairing a closed-door weekly meeting to examine the party’s performance in the poll. Su said an official report would be presented in tomorrow’s weekly Central Standing Committee meeting.
Wu also said a Cabinet reshuffle would take place in January after the current legislative session ends, sometime in the middle of January.
“We will have an overall review of Cabinet officials’ performance over the past year when the legislative session ends. I feel there is room for improvement,” he said.
“However, it will not be an extensive reshuffle,” Wu said.
Other results in the Global Views Monthly showed the public mood index (TPMI) this month was down 2.2 points and remained below 50 at 43.2.
The TPMI consists of two indexes: the political confidence index (PCI) and the economic confidence index (ECI).
The PCI was 47.5 this month, while the ECI was 38.9. The figures represent a decrease of 0.7 point and 3.6 points respectively over last month.
On the political front, the index for political optimism this month rose 1.2 points to 50.5, despite the ECI fall.
The political stability index for next month was up 3.7 points and reached a record-high of 44.2 points. The index for cross-strait detente next month was down 1.3 points, but was still above the 50 benchmark, at 56.7.
On the economic front, the current economic situation index was 32.5 points, a decline of 3.9 points from last month. The economic optimism index also sank 3.2 to 45.3 points.
Pollsters said although the TAIEX reached an historic high this month, the ECI dropped to a new low mainly because of price hikes in gasoline and commodities.
The poll surveyed 1,002 adults across the nation from Nov. 14 through Nov. 16, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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