Governor still has city’s support after year in the job
Most Bangkok residents are satisfied with the performance of governor Chadchart Sittipunt after one year in office although his approval rating has dropped since a similar survey conducted after his first six months, according to the National Institute of Development Administration, or Nida Poll.
A sample of 2,000 eligible voters aged 18 and over of various levels of education and incomes in all 50 districts was questioned by telephone on May 24-30.
In terms of his overall performance, 45.45% said they were satisfied and said the governor had worked hard and quickly to solve problems.
They noted an improvement in the capital, with 27.75% saying they were very satisfied because he delivered what he had promised during his campaign and was always on the ground to listen to people’s problems.
However, about 14.8% said they were not satisfied with his work as he had not delivered as promised and many problems in the capital had not been fixed. About 10% said they were very unsatisfied because they had seen no change.
In an earlier poll on Dec 4 last year, 38.93% professed to be very satisfied, more than the latest poll’s figure of 27.75%, while scores for those who are not satisfied and highly dissatisfied increased from 7.93% last time to 10% this time and 10.54% to 14.8% respectively.
The participants were also asked to rate Mr Chadchart’s performance in 17 different areas including the issue of public parks. A majority (42%) were satisfied with his work while 10.95% were not satisfied. Almost half (44.35%) were satisfied with the management of garbage, dust and wastewater while 12.35% gave him a rating of “poor”. For flood management, 36.15% said his performance was good while 12.8% thought it poor.
Mr Chadchart said yesterday that although the poll showed a dip in popularity, he was not worried.
“I will take all the feedback and improve my work. I did my best during this first year and also received good cooperation from all agencies. I will also work with the new government to find solutions to help reduce the cost of living for people,” he said.
Flooding will be less of a problem in Bangkok during this year’s rainy season, he said, because the city’s infrastructure for dealing with inundation has been improved.