President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has failed the public, with a public opinion poll giving him a score of 40 on a scale of 0 to 100 for his performance during his six years in office, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said yesterday.
Nearly two-thirds, or 65.6 percent, of respondents gave the president a score below the passing mark of 60, Lin told a press conference as he released the party’s survey conducted on Wednesday and Thursday last week.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) did not pass either, garnering an average score of 41, with 63.1 percent giving him a grade below 60, the survey showed.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The Ma administration received an average score of 31.2 in addressing the problem of the widening gap between the rich and the poor, 32.8 on stabilizing commodity prices, 34 on dealing with social movements, 36.9 on managing economic growth, 37.4 on defending the nation’s sovereignty and 39.3 on responding to public demands to stop the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮) in New Taipei City, the survey showed.
Respondents gave the Ma administration an average score of 41.9 on national defense and education-related issues, a slightly higher average score of 42.4 in the area of diplomacy, 42.8 on human rights protection, 43.3 on cross-strait relations and 43.9 in addressing anti-corruption problems.
Compared with what Ma touted at a press conference earlier yesterday to mark his six years in office, the survey was proof that he has “strayed too far from public opinion” in his policies, Lin said.
What Ma said at the press conference showed that he had done nothing to reflect on what has gone wrong under his governance, and instead put all the blame on the opposition parties and lashed out at people who took to the streets to make their voices heard, Lin said.
This came out of Ma’s mindset that “I [Ma] never make mistakes. If there was a mistake, it must be somebody else’s fault, not mine,” Lin said.
The survey also gauged public perception of the performance of DPP and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) city mayors and county commissioners, with the former receiving a average score of 71.7 and the latter 58.7.
The survey gathered 1,049 valid samples from citizens 20 years old and above, with a margin of error of plus or minus-3.31 percent.
Separately, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) described the past six years under Ma’s leadership as the darkest period in the nation’s history.
Taiwan was a newborn democracy that was able to accomplish peaceful revolution in politics and create an economic miracle, but Ma’s six years in office have led the country into its darkest period with democracy regressing and the economy slumping, Huang said.
Taiwanese have had enough of Ma, Huang said.
“Ma must listen to the people and follow their orders, or he will have to face trial after leaving office,” he added.
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