Macau, China, 25 Jun – Chief Executive Fernando Chui Sai On has fared badly in an opinion poll, with just 26 percent of all respondents satisfied with his political performance since taking office in December last year while Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Cheong U scored a higher approval rating, according to a survey by the New Vision of Macau Association.
The Macao Post Daily writes today that off the 1,160 surveyed, about 18 percent were "satisfied" and 8.5 percent were "highly satisfied" with the overall performance of the government under Chui, some 22 percent were either "highly dissatisfied" or "dissatisfied", while the remaining 51 percent either thought the government was "so-so," they did not know, or they chose not to answer the question.
According to the association, 1,160 randomly selected respondents were interviewed by phone and on the street last Saturday.
Chui scored 58.58 in a question asking participants to rate government leaders’ performance from 0 to 100, while Cheong came in slightly higher at 58.63, and Secretary for Economy and FinanceFrancis Tarn Pak Yuen took third place with 57.18 among Chui’s five policy secretaries.
Most of the policy secretaries scored within a very narrow band, with the three lowest-scorers Secretary for Administration and Justice Florinda Chan Lai Man at 55.4, Secretary for Transport and Public Works Lau Si Io coming in at 55.5 and Secretary for Security Cheong Kuoc Va at 55.8.
The survey also found just 22 percent of respondents believed that the government was successfully running a "sunshine" (corruption-free and transparent) government, one of Chui’s core campaign promises.
About one third of respondents said they were dissatisfied with the government’s progress in this area, and around 45 percent said they thought that the level of transparency was "so-so", did not understand the question, or did not have an opinion.
Meanwhile, the satisfaction with the performance of each government portfolio was significantly low, with just 36 percent of interviewees satisfied or very satisfied with the administration of Social Affairs and Culture, 35 percent happy with the Economy and Finance portfolio, and 31 percent who thought the area of Security was being well handled.
The handling of the Administration and Justice and Transport and Public Works portfolios has only pleased about one in five respondents, respectively.
At least one third of all respondents were highly dissatisfied or dissatisfied with the government’s handling of illegal workers, its response to the May 1 protest, the speed of the construction of public housing, the way the government handled the Viva Macau airline issue and the establishment of a "sunshine" government.
The policies that people seemed to largely approve of were education subsidies, one-off annual "wealth-share" government handouts to local residents, and the construction of a new hospital in Cotai the new reclamation area between Taipa and Coloane islands.
Li Lue, the association’s vice-president and associate professor at Macau Polytechnic Institute (IPM), said he thought that overall most respondents basically affirm that Chui’s administration was not too bad.
The association, which was set up in April, is mainly composed of young academics and professionals working in the public sector.
(MacauNews)
