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President Park Geun-hye experiences virtual reality at the Korea Virtual Reality Festival at Nuri Dream Square in Seoul

South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s job approval rating has dipped below 30% for the first time in six months.

On Oct. 7, Gallup Korea said that Park had an approval rating of 29% in a survey of 1,009 adults around the country carried out between Oct. 4 and 6. Other times that Park’s approval rating has fallen to 29% were during the fourth week of Jan. 2015 and the first week of Feb. 2015, when there was a controversy about end-of-the-year tax reporting and a tax increase; during the third week of June of the same year, around the outbreak of MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome); and during the third week of Apr. 2016, immediately after the general election. This survey was carried out shortly after the ruling Saenuri Party first boycotted and then rejoined the parliamentary audit, when a large number of allegations were being leveled against the Mir and K-Sports foundations.

For three consecutive weeks in September, Park’s approval rating traced a downward arc. During the second week of September, her approval rating was at 33%, falling two percentage points to 31% in the fourth week and then sinking to 30% in the fifth week.

Negative assessments of Park’s job performance were up 1 percentage point from the previous week, to 57%. Some of the reasons offered by respondents for this negative assessment were her uncommunicativeness (22%), her economic policies (12%), her high-handed and self-righteous attitude (9%) and her inept handling of government affairs (9%).

Among approval ratings for political parties, the Saenuri Party maintained the lead at 30%, but this was 1 percentage point lower than the previous week and continued a three-week decline. The opposition Minjoo Party climbed 1 percentage point to 25%, while the People’s Party declined 2 percentage points to 10%.

When asked about the implementation of the Anti-Corruption and Bribery Prohibition Act (called the Kim Young-ran Act), support for the act (71%) outnumbered opposition (21%) by an overwhelming margin. The percentage of respondents who support the act was higher than in the second week of March (58%) or the third week of May (66%), before the act took effect. 45% of respondents said they expect the Kim Young-ran Act will have a positive effect on the economy, which was about twice the percentage who think it will have a negative effect (23%).

This survey was conducted on mobile phone users through the random digit dialing (RDD) method. It had a margin of error of ±3.1% with a reliability of 95% and a response rate of 20%.

By Park Seung-heon, staff reporter

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