hankyoreh

South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks during Friday’s official rollout of the KF-21 Boramae at the Korea Aerospace Industries facility in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province. (Yonhap News)

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating hit a new low in a regular survey conducted by the polling company Realmeter.

On April 5-9, Realmeter surveyed 2,514 adult South Koreans nationwide at the request of the YTN network. The results, which had a margin of error of ±2.0 percentage points and a 95% confidence level, showed just 33.4% of respondents expressing a favorable assessment of Moon’s governance, down 1.2 percentage points from the week before.

In terms of weekly numbers calculated by Realmeter, the number was 0.7 percentage points beneath the previous low of 34.1% recorded during the third week of March. The percentage of respondents rating Moon’s performance negatively was up by 0.5 percentage points to 62.9% — 0.4 percentage points above the previous high of 62.5%.

The difference between positive and negative assessments of Moon’s performance stood at 29.5 percentage points, the largest such gap since his administration took office.

The People Power Party (PPP) recorded a support rating of 39.4%, continuing its rise for a sixth straight week with an increase of 0.3 percentage points from the week before. The percentage was the highest since the party’s rebranded launch.

Support for the ruling Democratic Party totaled 30.4%, up 1.6 percentage points from the week before.

The Korea Society Opinion Institute (KSOI) also announced findings from a survey of 1,018 adult South Koreans nationwide conducted on Friday and Saturday at the request of the TBS network. The results, which had a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points and a 95% confidence level, similarly showed 33.5% of respondents sharing a favorable opinion of Moon’s governance, down 6.5 percentage points from the week before.

Negative assessments were up by 5.9 percentage points to 62.4%. In particular, KSOI noted that negative assessments outweighed positive ones by a margin of 53.0% to 42.8% among respondents in their 40s — a demographic that had previously supported Moon consistently.

The KSOI survey showed the PPP with a support rating of 31.7%, which was similar to the 31.6% recorded in last week’s survey. Support for the Democratic Party stood at 29.1%, down by 3.9 percentage points from the previous survey.

In particular, the Democratic Party registered steep dips of 15.1 percentage points among respondents in their 30s and 13.9 percentage points among those living in the Seoul area.

“We’re seeing yet another reversal between the Democratic Party and PPP, which have traded first place three times in terms of party support since the second week of March,” a KSOI official told the Hankyoreh.

“The boost in the PPP’s support rating appears to have been influenced by their victory in the April 7 by-elections,” the official suggested.

By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter

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