Taiwan Cabinet Faces Over 40% Dissatisfaction... Growing Crisis Within the Democratic Progressive Party

With less than 100 days remaining until Taiwan's presidential and legislative elections in January next year, dissatisfaction with the cabinet led by former Vice President Chen Chien-jen has surpassed 40% for the first time. This has heightened the sense of crisis within the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Chen Zhenlun, New Premier of Taiwan

Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation (TPOF), a Taiwanese polling organization, announced that a survey conducted from the 18th to the 20th among 1,077 adults aged 20 and over via landline and mobile phones revealed these results.

TPOF explained that the approval rating for the Chen cabinet, which was inaugurated on January 31, dropped by 9.1 percentage points from the previous month to 39.7% in September, while the dissatisfaction rate rose by 3.8 percentage points to 40.4%, surpassing 40% for the first time. Former Vice President Chen entered politics as the running mate of President Tsai Ing-wen in the 2016 Taiwan presidential election and has been serving as Premier, the equivalent of Prime Minister, since January, leading the cabinet.

TPOF noted that approximately 1.7 million supporters, accounting for about 9%, have defected within a month since the August survey, attributing much of this to the recent controversy over the expiration date labeling on imported eggs.

Chen Chi-chung, Taiwan's first Minister of Agriculture, tendered his resignation to former Premier Chen on the 17th amid safety concerns over imported eggs. Earlier, the Taiwan government decided to import eggs from 12 countries due to disruptions in egg supply caused by an outbreak of avian influenza locally. However, it was revealed that some companies had mislabeled the expiration dates on imported eggs. As safety concerns escalated and a decision was made to discard approximately 54 million eggs, public opinion worsened, leading Minister Chen to take responsibility and step down.

TPOF pointed out that with the presidential and legislative elections scheduled simultaneously on January 13 next year, public evaluation of the cabinet's future actions will be a significant variable in the upcoming presidential election. President Tsai, who resigned as DPP chairperson after losing local elections, attempted to appeal to public sentiment by reshuffling the cabinet to lay the groundwork for victory in the presidential election, but this strategy has not been very effective.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese media reported that Hou You-yi, the Kuomintang (KMT) presidential candidate and New Taipei City mayor, began a long-term leave yesterday in accordance with civil servant leave regulations to officially start his presidential campaign.

Additionally, the media added that Ke Wen-je, the candidate of the third party, the Taiwan People's Party, plans to visit the United States for five days starting from the 1st of next month on a private schedule.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.