President Tsai Ing-wen has an approval rating of 62% after her first month in office. That’s according to a new survey by Taiwan Brain Trust, out on June 20th, exactly one month after her inauguration.
The survey polled the opinions of 1,070 adults last Thursday and Friday with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.99%.
The survey found that just 24% of the people polled expressed dissatisfaction. Some 65% said they were confident in Tsai’s future performance, as compared with 24% who were not confident.
As to Tsai’s campaign promises, the survey showed a mixed response. Some 46% said that Tsai’s Cabinet choices reflected her pledge to branch out beyond her own Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). In the area of cross-strait relations, 53% said they felt that Tsai had stuck to her promise of maintaining the status quo.
Cross-Strait Policy Association Director Wu Chen-cheng says that the wait-and-see attitude of swing voters will prove a challenge for Tsai in the future.
“I believe the Tsai Ing-wen administration’s challenge will not come from the [opposition camp], but rather from the changing attitudes of swing voters. It doesn’t have to do with politics, but with policy. Those [swing voters] are more open when it comes to political leaning, but they are much more demanding when it comes to policy," said Wu.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan Brain Trust survey also rated the performance of different parties within the legislature. Legislators from Tsai’s own party, the DPP, fared the best with an approval rating of 44%. Next came the affiliated New Power Party at 40%.
The opposition parties did not fare as well. Former President Ma Ying-jeou’s Kuomintang (KMT) had an approval rating of 24%, while the allied People First Party (PFP) was at 20%.