New Global Views Poll Has Ma at.... 32%

The latest Global Views poll (Chinese) has satisfaction with President Ma at 32.3% and support for ECFA at 47%. Global Views can hardly be described as a pro-Green organization. Taiwan News reports:

In its monthly poll of 1,010 Taiwan adults conducted July 14-16, the GVSRC found that 32.3 percent were satisfied with Ma's performance, up from 28.4 percent last month, while 56.2 percent expressed dissatisfaction, up from 55.6 percent in June.

Moreover, 44.3 percent expressed confidence in Ma's leadership, up from 38.3 percent in June, while 42.0 percent of those surveyed said they lacked such confidence, down from 43.3 percent last month.

While improved, the results fell short of a major improvement in Ma's performance ratings in the wake of the signing of the "Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement" reported by senior KMT officials.

Moreover, the GVSRC result also conflicted with a poll of 1,078 persons conducted by the official Research, Development and Evaluation Commission earlier this month which indicated that 46.8 percent were satisfied with Ma's performance with 43.8 percent dissatisfied.

GVSRC Director Tai An-li stated that the improvement was probably 'mainly due to the temporary cessation of disputes after the signing of the ECFA," which was signed in Chongqing, China on June 29 by the chairmen of Taiwan's Strait Exchange Foundation and the PRC's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait and now faces ratification in the Legislative Yuan.

The survey showed a consolidation of public backing for the ECFA, with 47.1 percent expressing approval, up from 46.2 percent in March, while opposition declined from 35.9 percent to 33.9 percent.

"Conflicts with" the RDEC poll? On July 14 I blogged on an SCMP piece attributed to Reuters in Taipei that repeated the RDEC's claim that approval for Ma was at 47%. I observed:

More interesting is Reuters' use of this poll, which appears to be rather high -- it has Ma's satisfaction rating essentially doubling. At least the article attempts to contain some balancing information that alludes to political pressure on the RDEC. Curiously, the RDEC seldom conducts polls on Ma's satisfaction ratings -- the last one was in June of 2009, as far as I can tell, and was at 52% much higher than the Global Views survey conducted at the same time (40%).

Sure enough, the different between the Global Views poll and the RDEC poll is again 10+ points. Note that the Director of the polling organization says that the rise was due to a "temporary cessation" of disputes. This might be a hint that the slight bump in Ma's approval ratings is just as temporary.

Only time will tell.
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