More than 70 percent of Taiwanese believe that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) reform efforts should continue, even though they appear to be hurting her approval ratings, a poll released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) showed.
About 53.3 percent of respondents said the divided public opinion on whether reforms should be conducted was the reason behind Tsai’s declining approval rating, while 37.1 percent disagreed with such an interpretation.
Asked whether the government should continue its reform efforts if they are headed in the right direction, 70.6 percent of respondents said yes, and 23.2 percent said no, the survey found.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
As the poll was conducted to review Tsai’s performance during her first two years in office, it also asked respondents to name one area in which they thought her policy was the most satisfying.
Long-term care services was picked by 16.6 percent of respondents, followed by pension reform (15.7 percent), childcare services (8.7 percent), pay raises and minimum wage hikes (8.2 percent) and national defense and the construction of locally manufactured submarines (3.3 percent), the poll found.
A cross-analysis of the results showed that respondents’ level of satisfaction with Tsai’s performance in these five areas appeared to transcend their political affiliations, except for pension reform, which received support from 27.1 percent of pan-green camp respondents and just 5.6 percent from pan-blue camp respondents.
Asked whether they supported Tsai, more than half (54.9 percent) said yes, while 40 percent said no.
A breakdown of the numbers showed that Tsai’s largest support base is among people aged 70 or older, as 63.4 percent of respondents in the age group voiced support for her, followed by people in the 20-to-29 age group with 60.9 percent support.
People who had the highest level of disapproval were those aged from 30 to 39, with a disapproval rate of 46.3 percent, followed the 40-to-49 group (43.4 percent) and the 50-to-59 group (42.3 percent).
However, the numbers shifted when respondents were asked whether they were satisfied with Tsai’s performance, with 41.7 percent of respondents saying yes, and 48.4 percent said no.
The 70-or-older age group was the only one in which more people were satisfied with Tsai’s performance than were not.
As for those in the 20-to-29 group, 49.4 percent were not content with the president’s performance, compared with 37 percent who expressed the opposite view.
The poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday and collected 1,020 valid samples.
It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
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