Tsai Ing-wen picture source: Taiwan's "China Times Electronic News"
The Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation released the latest poll today. Both approval and disapproval of Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen's way of handling political affairs were 45%; Director of the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation Changyou Yinglong believes that after the hard battle to defend Tsai Ing-wen's reputation over the past month, Tsai Ing-wen is still fighting hard, has not escaped from the ruling dilemma, and has fallen into a stalemate.
He analyzed that compared with May last year, 93% of citizens under the age of 24 supported Tsai Ing-wen, and now only 54% supported Tsai Ing-wen; 46% of neutral voters disapproved, and 37% agreed, showing that neutral voters The majority is on the side of the opposition. The
poll shows whether they agree or disagree with Tsai Ing-wen's way of handling political affairs, including important personnel arrangements and policies; 10.5% strongly agree, 34.9% moderately agree, 26.1% do not agree very much, and 19.1% do not agree at all. He said that this shows that Taiwanese society has mixed opinions on Tsai Ing-wen's performance in power. Judging from the number of people, the pros and cons are evenly matched, but from the perspective of intensity, the side that disagrees has a stronger attitude.
He said that compared with last month, Tsai Ing-wen’s “approval rate of job performance” increased by 2.2%, and her “disapproval rate” increased by 0.7%; the difference was 0.2%, and public support stopped falling and rebounded, but the magnitude is limited. At the same time, due to the continued slight increase in unsupportive social forces, the overall balance of Tsai Ing-wen's public support showed a slight reversal of 0.2%. It is obvious that Tsai Ing-wen's social support and unsupportive forces are in a fierce tug of war. An inextricable state. Why did
rebound this month? He believes that as long as there are no new emergencies in the international and cross-strait situation, there are no more than two factors. One is that the epidemic is obviously under control, and the other is that vaccines are in place. Tsai Ing-wen and her ruling team have made contributions in helping to open up imports, and Tsai Ing-wen’s reputation Naturally, it was also lifted.
He believes that in the past five years, the DPP authorities’ more controversial public policies include one-case-one-break, pension reform, same-sex marriage, judicial reform, forward-looking plans, public participation system, etc., and the current vaccine policy has all set off a firestorm. The DPP has also paid a heavy price for the strong backlash from society. The disastrous defeat in the 2018 election is an example. The root cause of a series of public policies that have triggered intense social controversies is to implement Tsai Ing-wen’s will to power. She is the origin of all these social controversies. In the future, the vaccine controversy will become a key factor in Tsai Ing-wen’s reputation and historical positioning.
He said that Tsai Ing-wen once enjoyed a comfortable plateau of public support for 16 months. Her current public support is the second lowest since the results of the Taiwan leader election were announced in January 2020. What will happen to her future popularity? The evolution is not optimistic.
