Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) is the least-favored mayor in the six special municipalities, likely due to his most recent controversial remarks, an online survey showed yesterday.
About one month after the six mayors were inaugurated, the KEYPO data analysis system, developed by Big Data Co Ltd, published a survey about online attitudes toward them.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) was the most favored, with 31.4 percent of online comments expressing a positive view of him, followed by Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) with 25.68 percent, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) with 25.08 percent and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) with 22.87 percent.
Photo: CNA
Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) and Ko ranked at the bottom of the list with 22.55 percent and 16.07 percent respectively, the survey showed.
Although Han is very popular online, negative comments toward him have begun to increase after he said at the city council that he would only be able to fulfill one of his 12 campaign promises in his first term, the report said.
Ko’s controversial statements have dampened people’s view of him, such as his comment that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Internet popularity for her response to a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last month was only a one-day phenomenon, as well as his analogy that the nation is like a “bank robber” regarding its relationships with China and the US, it said.
Asked to comment on why he and Han were the least favored, Ko said that the issue is a little complicated, because with online popularity, quantity and quality must be considered.
Having a strong online influence and analyzing the proportion of positive and negative comments are two different issues, he added.
Asked whether his remarks could have affected his overall reputation, Ko said that single cases would not affect the overall picture, but many small victories can add up to a big victory, and vice versa, so politicians should be aware of it.
“Can the government make mistakes? The answer is yes, but we cannot keep repeating the same mistakes,” he said. “It is impossible to make no mistakes, unless we do nothing at all, which is also impossible, so we should reflect and think about how we can improve every day, and accumulate small victories.”
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