On the eve of the final year of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) second four-year term today, Ma’s disapproval rating stood at nearly 70 percent or higher in various surveys, while his approval rating was as low as less than 20 percent.
About 68.4 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with Ma’s performance as president, against 21.3 percent who said they were satisfied, in a telephone-based poll conducted on Sunday, Taiwan Thinktank said yesterday.
A cross-analysis of differences in political party affiliation found that among respondents who identified themselves as supporters of the pan-blue camp, 50.5 percent said they found Ma’s governance dissatisfactory, the poll showed.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The survey found 49.1 percent of respondents doubted the image Ma has sought to establish as a clean politician because they said they believed there might have been some irregularities involving Ma in his handling of the Taipei Dome project when he was Taipei mayor, while 29.2 percent believed he was clean.
The president has repeatedly stressed that only by respecting the so-called “1992 consensus” — an alleged agreement between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that there is “one China, with each side having its own interpretation of what ‘one China’” means” — can the “status quo” be maintained, but the survey found that a majority of people did not agree.
According to the survey, 68.7 percent of the public said they support maintaining the “status quo,” while only 15.4 percent said they support the “1992 consensus.”
KMT Chairman and New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) description of cross-strait relations as “both sides belonging to one China,” to which Ma has given his endorsement, was supported by only 13 percent of respondents, while 77.4 percent said Taiwan and China are both sovereign states, independent of each other and not subordinate to the other, the survey found.
About 50.2 percent of respondents said the government should place more consideration on the impact of cross-strait exchanges and negotiations on national security, while 38.1 percent said economic benefits should be the main concern, the poll showed.
On a scale of zero to 10, with zero indicating “not at all” and 10 signifying “extremely,” the extent to which respondents perceived Taiwan as depending on China to maintain its economic growth stood at 6.1. Moreover, 62.2 percent of respondents said Taiwan should deepen its economic ties with countries other than China.
A survey that the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times) conducted from Saturday to Monday found that 14.52 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with Ma’s performance over the past seven years, against 64.3 percent who thought the opposite.
Similar results were found in a survey released by the TVBS poll center yesterday showing Ma’s approval rating at 16 percent and disapproval rating at 67 percent.
In another poll, conducted by Taiwan Indicators Survey Research, 15.4 percent expressed satisfaction with Ma, while 75.7 percent were dissatisfied.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
SIXTEEN LOCAL: Three COVID-19 infections are linked to a cluster at a gambling house in Yilan County, 10 to a case in New Taipei City and three had unclear sources The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday urged people to increase vigilance and thoroughly practice preventive measures against COVID-19 as it reported 16 locally transmitted cases of the disease. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that 21 cases were confirmed in Taiwan yesterday: 16 local cases, four imported cases and one case undetermined. The locally transmitted cases are three linked to a cluster of infections at a gambling house in Yilan County, 10 associated with a previous case in New Taipei City and three with unclear sources of infection. The CECC on Tuesday reported a cluster
ENFORCING CAUTION: Certain entertainment facilities are to close nationwide to prevent people traveling there from high-risk areas in the north, the center said The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday raised the COVID-19 alert for Taipei and New Taipei City to level 3 in light of surging cases in the two cities. The enhanced disease prevention measures for level 3 are to be implemented until May 28, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a morning news conference at the Executive Yuan in Taipei. With 180 locally transmitted cases confirmed yesterday, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that the government must take immediate action to protect the public, referring to measures stipulated in the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法). Other counties
TRACING TROUBLE: An infected man who had said that all his children were abroad was found to have a daughter in Kaohsiung who tested positive, the center said The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported a new daily record of 29 local COVID-19 cases, including seven cases with unknown sources of infection. Of the 29 cases, 16 are linked to tea houses in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a news briefing in Taipei. The 16 are tea house workers or visitors, or their contacts, the CECC said. Workers and visitors to the establishments have frequent interpersonal contact, but few protective measures against the COVID-19 pandemic are in place, Chen said, urging those who have been exposed or have
GRID PROBLEM: A Taipower spokesman said that the blackouts were not due to usage exceeding supply, nor were they because of a problem at the Singda plant There were rolling blackouts across Taiwan yesterday due to a grid malfunction at the Singda Power Plant (興達電廠) in Kaohsiung’s Yongan District (永安), while Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) said that it was working “as hard as possible to resolve the issue as soon as possible.” At 2:37pm, a malfunction at an ultra-high-voltage substation in Kaohsiung’s Lujhu District (路竹) triggered four generators at the Singda plant to go offline, cutting power output by 2.2 million kilowatts and prompting Taipower to initiate rolling blackouts nationwide as it worked on the problem. Taipower spokesman Chang Ting-shu (張廷抒) told a news conference in Taipei that
RSS