Pres. Park’s approval rating slides again

Posted on : 2013-12-21 14:40 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Recent controversy over rail privatization and Park’s uncommunicative ruling style appear to be behind the dip

By Kim Nam-il, staff reporter

One year after her election victory, President Park Geun-hye experienced another slide in her approval ratings, which dipped to 48%, six percent lower than the previous week.

It was the first time since her Blue House nominations debacle in April that Park’s approval ratings fell below 50%. She was elected on Dec. 19, 2012 with 51.6% of the popular vote.

Negative ratings of Park’s performance were at 41%, their highest level since she took office in February. A recent controversy over railway privatization and perceptions of Park as “self-righteous” contributed to the high scores.

Results from Gallup Korea’s regular opinion poll for the third week of December, released on Dec. 20, showed 48% of respondents saying Park’s performance has been “good.” The number was down six percentage points from the 54% recorded last week. It was the second biggest one-week drop since September, when there was a seven-point slide amid accusations that Park was backtracking on her basic old age pension election pledge and a breakdown of talks with the leaders of the two chief political parties.

The drop was matched by a six percentage point rise in the number of respondents rating Park’s performance as “poor,” up from 35% last week.

A single-day survey on Dec. 18 had positive ratings at 46% and negative ratings at 42%.

Most of the reasons given for low job performance ratings had to do with Park’s manner and approach to her duties, with 20% of respondents citing “lack of communication, openness, and transparency,” and another 11% citing “self-righteousness, high-handedness, and self-centeredness.” The number citing the recent railway privatization furor as a reason for their negative view jumped to 14%, from just 3% last week.

“It appears that a number of things, including the arrest of railway union officials opposed to KORAIL’s establishment of a subsidiary, are coming across as high-handed and unilateral rather than conciliatory to non-supporters of the President,” Gallup Korea said.

“Many have been commenting on the President and administration’s ‘communication,’ and the ‘How are you nowadays?’ poster campaign has been gathering momentum online and through social media,” it added. “People have been following the events closely.”

Forty-one percent of respondents identified themselves as supporters of Park’s ruling Saenuri Party (NFP), followed by 22% with the Democratic Party (DP), 2% with the Unified Progressive Party, and 1% with the Justice Party. Thirty-three percent did not identify with any party.

The DP had its highest approval rating since November, but rose in support by just three percentage points.

When asked who they would support if independent lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo goes ahead with plans to form a new party, 32% said they would back the new party, with 35% supporting Saenuri and 10% supporting the DP. The high numbers were taken as a response to Ahn’s recent public steps to launch the new party.

For the survey, mobile phone interviews were conducted with 1,207 adults between Dec. 16 and 19. The confidence level was 95%, with a 2.8 percentage point margin of error.

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