Research, Development and Evaluation Commission

Mayor’s Satisfaction Rate Goes Up by 3 Percent and Dissatisfaction Rate Drops by 5 Percent Comparing With the Poll in September 2020
According to the poll conducted in December 2020 by The Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) of Taipei City Government, 57% of the respondents approve Mayor Ko’s job performance, 31% do not and 12% have no opinions or do not know. In comparison to the previous poll conducted in September 2020, the approval rate increases by 3% and the disapproval rate drops by 5%. For the satisfaction of the department heads of Taipei City Government (Mayor Ko’s administration), 51% approve, 21% do not, and 27% have no opinions or do not know. In general, Mayor Ko’s approval rate goes up slightly and the administration team’s satisfaction rate remains the same.

In regard to the satisfaction for the implementation of policy measures, “public safety,” “environment protection,” “Taipei City Hospital,” “cultural events,” “transportation,” “social welfare” and “public infrastructure” get more than 50% of the satisfaction rate. For “primary and secondary education,” although the satisfaction rate is below 50% at 44%, it is still higher than its dissatisfaction rate of 19%.

Respondents also express a lot of affirmation of Taipei City Government’s service attitude and administrative efficiency with 83% and 73% satisfaction rate respectively. The quality of life in Taipei City is also satisfied with 79% of the respondents. It shows that the efficiency and the quality of life in Taipei City are still deeply recognized by most of its citizens.

Monga Qingshan Temple Pilgrimage
The December poll also asks all citizens in Taipei City about their opinion on the Monga Qingshan Temple pilgrimage. Sixty-one percent of the interviewees know about the event and 7% of them have participated in it this year or in the past. Under the circumstances of single choice, randomized answer options, and prompted one-by-one, all interviewees are asked about their views on religious pilgrimage. Forty-six percent of them believe that they "respect the local culture and accept it, although it has some impact on their daily life.” Twenty-nine percent of them believe that “the time has changed and the event should not interfere with people's lives.” The other 22% believe that “they do not live nearby the pilgrimage route and the pilgrimage has no impact on their life.”

The same poll to the residents of Wan-Hua District shows that 91% of them know about the Monga Qingshan Temple pilgrimage. Fifteen percent of the respondents who know about the Monga Qingshan Temple pilgrimage have participated in the event before which equals to 13.6% of the respondents have participated in it.

Under the circumstances of multiple choices and no prompting of the selections, 54% of the residents living in Wan-Hua District believe that the pilgrimage causes some negative impact on their daily life and 46% believe that there is no impact. The noise from the event and from the firecrackers affects people the most among all the causes. With Mayor Ko’s instruction to reduce firecrackers and noise and set the time limitation for the event in the post-event debriefing, 76% of the local residents are in favor of it but 12% are not.

Regarding the opinion on holding religious activities such as Monga Qingshan Temple pilgrimage, 59% of the Wan-Hua District residents believe that they "respect the local culture and accept it, although it has some impact on their daily life.” Twenty-seven percent of them believe that “the time has changed and the event should not interfere with people's lives.” The other 9% believe that “they do not live nearby the pilgrimage route and the pilgrimage has no impact on their life.” The last question asks whether you will accept the pilgrimage event if it causes some impact on peoples’ life but revitalizes the local economy at the same time, 74% of the respondents agree with the idea of continuing holding the event while 16% disagree.

Based on the poll conducted in December 2020, both the citizens in Taipei and the residents of Wan-Hua District express similar ideas of "respecting the local culture and accepting it, although it has some impact on their daily life.” The proportions are relatively high at 46% and 59%. Only 27% and 29% of the respondents believe that “the time has changed and the event should not interfere with people's lives.”

The Result From TTR is Similar to The Result From RDEC
Taiwan Trends Research (TTR), is also commissioned to conduct the same telephone survey at the same time, with the same questionnaire and sampling methods. Forty-seven percent of the respondents are satisfied with Mayor Ko’s performance, however, 37% are not and 15% have no opinion or do not know. As for the satisfaction of the department heads of Taipei City Government (Mayor Ko’s administration), 45% satisfied, 26% do not, and 29% have no opinions or do not know. As for the city policies, the overall order of satisfaction and the result of the Monga Qingshan Temple pilgrimage related issues are similar to the results conducted by RDEC. However, some satisfaction rate is about 10 percentage point lower than the RDEC survey, such as “mayor’s approval rate” and “government efficiency.” It may come from institutional effects. All the polling details can be provided for reference.


Background Information of the Opinion Poll
The job approval rate poll is conducted between December 14 and 17 of 2020. The poll conducted by RDEC is successfully interviewing 1287 people living in Taipei and aged 18 or older (1148 people refuse to participate). The margin of sampling error is under ±2.73 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval. The poll conducted by Taiwan Trend Research, TTR, is successfully interviewing 1,079 people living in Taipei and aged 18 or older (617 people refuse participation). The margin of sampling error is ±2.98% with a 95 percent confidence interval. The telephone numbers are randomly selected from residential numbers in Taipei City. The responses are weighted by age, gender and household registration.

The Wan-Hua District household phone polling project is conducted by RDEC in the evenings of December 21 to 25 of 2020, successfully interviewing 1297 people living within the district and aged 18 or older (834 people refuse to participate). The margin of sampling error is ±2.72% with a 95 percent confidence interval. The telephone numbers are randomly selected from residential numbers in the district. The responses are weighted by age, gender and household registration. People living in the district without household registration have the same weight as residents with registration. Due to the incomplete Village information, the data can only be used as the reference but not the weighted variable.