TAIPEI - TAIWAN'S leader saw last week how quickly a natural disaster can become a political one - now he must win back political capital he lost during the bungled response to Typhoon Morakot, experts said.

Bodyguards had to step in to protect President Ma Ying-jeou from the very people he had come to comfort as he visited survivors of the typhoon that may have left more than 500 dead across central and southern Taiwan.

Dogged at every turn, Mr Ma bowed to public anger by the weekend, apologising several times over the government's failure to see the magnitude of the crisis in time.

'We could have done a better job and we could have done it faster. I am sorry that we did not do our job better and faster,' Mr Ma said while inspecting relief efforts in Nantou county on Saturday.

'I will take full responsibility whatever the blame is. After all, I'm the president of this country,' Mr Ma told CNN on Sunday.

He has a string of blunders to overcome: rejecting foreign aid, initially appearing arrogant and aloof when meeting survivors, and telling the British ITN television network that victims failed to take the initiative to evacuate.

'Mr Ma was elected on the slogan 'We are ready', but now the public sees his government doing a terrible job,' Tung Chen-yuan, a political analyst at National Chengchi University said. 'This could deal a significant blow to his popularity.'

Mr Ma swept to power in a landslide victory in May last year. Since taking office, he has deftly managed the tightrope of Taiwan politics by boosting the economy with China-friendly policies while keeping opposition charges that he was compromising the island's sovereignty at bay. But until the typhoon, the former Taipei mayor and Harvard Law graduate had not been tested by crisis.

In recurring scenes broadcast on Taiwanese media, angry survivors desperate for news of missing relatives confronted Mr Ma as he visited devastated areas. 'What is the government doing? It's too late, they cannot be saved,' an angry man yelled at Mr Ma during one of the visits.

Late in the week he sought to regain control, on Friday calling his first-ever national security meeting and replacing his emergency response chief - a move that reinforced some commentators' comparisons to the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina.

'The government lacks organisation and efficiency and makes many mistakes... public anger is mounting and the confidence in the government is shaken,' said George Tsai, a political science professor at Chinese Cultural University. -- AFP