The Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation and the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association yesterday released separate polls on Taiwanese satisfaction with President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) governance over the past six years.
About 63.9 percent of respondents said that coexisting with COVID-19 is a suitable policy for Taiwan, 11.5 percent preferred the “zero COVID” model adopted by the Shanghai City Government and 24.6 percent declined to provide an answer, the association’s poll showed.
The poll also showed that 48.3 percent of respondents were confident that Tsai is handling cross-strait relations appropriately, while 36.1 percent said that they lacked confidence in her approach.
Photo courtesy of the Taoyuan City Government
Overall, the poll showed that 49.2 percent of respondents were satisfied with the governance of the Tsai administration, while 29.1 percent expressed dissatisfaction.
The association’s poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, interviewing 1,073 adults in telephone interviews after calling randomized landline numbers.
It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.98 percentage points.
The association’s poll was weighted based on gender, age and region.
Taiwan Thinktank member Tung Li-wen (董立文) said that she was impressed by the Tsai administration’s ability to maintain high satisfaction ratings, even amid unprecedented political, economic and military turmoil.
The foundation’s poll separately showed that 26.8 percent of respondents were “extremely satisfied” with the performance of Tsai’s administration, 16.5 were “satisfied,” 23.1 percent were “ambivalent,” 13.1 percent were “moderately dissatisfied” and 16.2 percent were “extremely dissatisfied.”
In descending order, 56.7 percent were satisfied with the performance of the administration’s foreign relations, 51.1 percent were satisfied with national defense, 49.5 percent were satisfied with cross-strait policies, 47.3 percent were satisfied with economic performance, 42.4 percent were satisfied that Taiwan had developed its own COVID-19 vaccine and 37.3 percent were satisfied with the administration’s judiciary reforms, the foundation’s poll showed.
Measuring dissatisfaction, 48.5 percent cited Taiwan’s vaccine development, 44.8 percent said economic performance, 43.9 percent said judicial reforms, 39.2 percent said cross-strait policies, 35 percent said national defense policies and 33.9 percent said foreign relations, it showed.
The foundation said that 46 percent supported Tsai’s handling of national affairs, while 40 percent were unhappy in that regard.
The narrow difference of 6.7 percentage points between the national affairs numbers should be a warning for the administration, the foundation said.
The foundation’s poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, interviewing people aged 20 or older via telephone.
It obtained 1,077 valid responses and has a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of 2.99 percentage points.
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