It seems almost superfluous to say so, but the President is deeply unpopular. FocusTaiwan says....
President Ma Ying-jeou's approval rating has fallen to 21 percent from 23 percent a year ago, according to a United Daily News poll conducted as Ma nears the end of the first year of his second term in office. He was sworn in on May 20, 2012.UDN is rabidly pro-KMT. Taiwan Thinktank had similar but slightly lower numbers out the other day. Both pan-Blue and pan-Green polling organizations are getting similar numbers. According to the UDN poll Ma's strong suit is foreign policy and his weakness is the economy.
Disapproval of Ma's performance rose from 66 percent to 70 percent during the same period, the poll results showed.
Although the government continues to trumpet the economy as its top priority, its efforts have been found lacking, with 76.4 percent of respondents saying they were not satisfied with the current economic situation in Taiwan.
Mustn't read much into this. Next year's local elections will be contested on local issues with some influence from Ma's low numbers. Ma and the KMT will again have the strong support of the monied classes since no serious progress has been made on Taiwan's wealth gap, income inequality, or tax unfairness. But slumping domestic numbers go a long way to explain why Ma has come on "tough" against the Philippines in incident of the dead fisherman.
_________________
Daily Links:
- Social innovation: lessons from Taiwan, SK, and Singapore.
- US detective has culture shock on trip to Taiwan
- Taiwan tries to regain lead in consumer electronics
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!
