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The number of people who are critical of South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s unification and North Korea policies has exceeded the number who approve, according to a public opinion poll commissioned by the Unification Ministry. This was the first time since Aug. 2015 that criticism exceeded support in the quarterly poll.

Respondents selected “improving inter-Korean relations” as the most important task for preparing for unification. The percentage of respondents who think that North Korea needs help increased, while the percentage who view North Korea with hostility decreased.

The opinion poll on unification and North Korea policy for the second quarter of 2016, which Korea Research conducted on 1,000 adult men and women around South Korea, found that more respondents had a negative view (46.9%) of the Park administration’s North Korea policy than a positive view (45.9%). Park Byeong-seok, a lawmaker with the Minjoo Party of Korea, released the findings of the poll on Sept. 4 after receiving them from the Unification Ministry.

This was the first time since the high-level inter-Korean talks in Aug. 2015 that the percentage of positive views was exceeded by negative ones in the poll, which is regularly commissioned by the Unification Ministry. The support rating for the Trust-Building Process on the Korean Peninsula (which is dead in the water, though it remains the government’s signature North Korea policy) dropped 3 percentage points from the first quarter to 61.1%.

The tasks that respondents regarded as most critical for preparing for unification were “improving inter-Korean relations” (31.6%) and “building a nationwide consensus” (30.7%). Compared to the poll in the previous quarter, the percentage of respondents who regard North Korea as “needing assistance” went up from 13.1% to 18.8%, while the percentage who think it should be “viewed with hostility” went down from 19.4% to 16.7%.

When asked what is needed to improve the human rights situation for North Koreans, the largest percentage of respondents selected “exchange and cooperation and humanitarian aid” (34.22%). The second most common response was “sanctions and pressure from the international community” (29.6%).

The percentage of respondents who approve of the government’s work to prepare for unification has continued to slide since the third quarter of last year. In this survey, 44% of respondents said that the government is “doing a good job,” which was 5.1 percentage points less than in the previous quarter.

By Kim Jin-cheol, staff reporter

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