The Taiwanese are not happy campers these days. The economy stinks. And voters are happy with neither the ruling Nationalist party nor the main opposition party.
Tensions with the mainland have eased in the past few months, but even that has not swept away the grumpiness.
Click here or here for a revealing opinion poll carried out last week among 1,002 Taiwanese. It was done by the Global Views Magazine and a Nationalist Party (KMT) offshoot website carries the link. The poll results don’t spare the ruling party.
Indeed, a majority of Taiwanese are unhappy with both the ruling party and opposition leaders.
The poll shows trust in President Ma Ying-jeou has dropped to 48.4 percent and for his KMT party to 41.3 percent. Even fewer respondents trust opposition leader Tsai Ying-wen, who garnered 42.5 percent trust. Her opposition Democratic Progressive Party is trusted by barely over a third of the electorate.
They can take heart in one thing: Their approval ratings still hover above those of soon-to-be-ex-President George W. Bush. This poll says 73 percent of Americans disapprove of his performance over the past eight years.
Polls are volatile and public opinions are manipulatable. Although I'm not a fan of Bush, I don't think he deserves the blame about the financial crisis, which is sometimes heaped on him.
Posted by: otoh | January 17, 2009 at 10:01 PM