This week marks six years since President Tsai Ing-wen took office. Recent public opinion polls show the president is still enjoying substantial, but somewhat wavering support.
This week marks the two-year anniversary of President Tsai Ing-wen beginning her second term in office. A new public opinion poll shows that after a total of 6 years in power, the president still enjoys an approval rating of over 46% on her handling of big issues. This represents a drop of 3.7 percentage points compared to April.
However, over 60% of the population gave the president a score of over 60 out of 100, with an average rating of 61.5. This is the highest average score in history.
Ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Chen Ting-fei says the president stands with the people. She says the people can feel that.
Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) lawmaker Lee De-wei, on the other hand, says that Health Minister Chen Shih-chung has lent the president some of his splendor over the last two years, boosting her ratings.
Close to half of the respondents believe that the Tsai administration did not prepare well for the Omicron outbreak currently sweeping Taiwan. Just over 37% believe the government was well-prepared.
DPP Legislator Ho Chih-wei says that going from a zero-COVID policy to one of coexistence unsettled many in Taiwan.
Cheng Cheng-chien from the KMT disagrees. He says that though the ruling party is good at public relations, it’s bad at pandemic prevention.
Last week, a KMT-leaning think tank published a different survey. It showed over 50% of respondents were unhappy with the government’s pandemic prevention policies over the last year, while 43% had the opposite view.
With COVID cases continuing to climb, every decision and change in policy is scrutinized in the court of public opinion. The public’s verdict will become known after local elections in November this year.
Tomasz Koper, RTI News