TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Polling data released Monday showed around half of Taiwanese people were satisfied with their president and legislative speaker in January, while more people had negative impressions of Taiwan’s three largest political parties.

My Formosa commissioned the poll, which found just over 50% of respondents were satisfied with President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) leadership, while just over 41% were dissatisfied. Meanwhile, just under 54% said they trusted Lai, compared to just over 40% who did not.

Lai outperformed former President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in both categories during the same period of her presidency, according to My Formosa’s polling at the time. Lai’s favorable result comes despite high-profile resignations, corruption investigations, and other issues within the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) during his presidency.

My Formosa also asked respondents for the first time if they were satisfied with Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) leadership. As speaker, Han has presided over the Kuomintang (KMT)-majority legislature, where clashes between the party and the DPP-led executive have at times prevented the government from progressing its agenda.

The poll found over 48% of respondents were satisfied with Han’s performance, while just under 42% were dissatisfied. This places Han’s satisfaction ratings within the poll’s 3% margin of error relative to Lai’s.

The similar favorability ratings follow a Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation poll released on Thursday showing the public was divided on two controversial legal amendments. The proposed amendments have been one of the main sources of friction between the government and the opposition in the legislature.

Slightly under 40% of respondents to the My Formosa poll said they were satisfied with Premier Cho Jung-tai’s (卓榮泰) performance, while just under 38% said they were not. Over 20% of respondents said they had difficulty evaluating Cho’s performance or had no opinion, which has been the case since he took office last May.

The poll also showed that slightly more respondents had a negative impression of the DPP (46.7%) than a positive impression (45.6%) in January, a result within the margin of error. Just under 8% said they had no opinion. Positive sentiment toward the party decreased by 2.6% compared to December, while negative sentiment increased by 4.7%.

Nearly 56% said they had a negative impression of the KMT, 33% had a positive impression, and 10% did not give a clear answer. This result showed little change compared to December.

Meanwhile, just over 59% said they had a negative impression of the minor Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), 27% had a positive impression, and just under 14% did not give a clear answer. Having a favorable impression of the TPP strongly correlated with trust in its imprisoned leader Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), with over 76% of respondents in this group saying they trusted him.

My Formosa commissioned Beacon Marketing to conduct the poll, which surveyed 1,077 voting-age people in all of Taiwan’s counties and cities. The poll was conducted via landline and cellphone interviews over two days last week.