SK President Moon’s Approval Rating Falls
South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating fell 35.5 percent over the week to 39 percent this week, the lowest approval rating recorded in nine weeks.
The five-day survey, beginning Monday, was conducted to around 2,510 voters nationwide wherein the results show that only 37.7 percent of respondents still support Moon's administration, the weakest in nine weeks since 35.5 percent was recorded in the starting week of this year and went down to 2.4 percent from the previous. The number of people who disapprove of Moon's presidency also rose to 1.7 percent to 57.4 percentage points.
The Realmeter's tracking poll says that the recent survey is the first time that Moon's approval rating declined below 40% since the 39.3% recorded result in the first week of February this year.
The public's support for Moon's political party Democratic Party (DP), also fell to 30.1 percent, while people's support to the main opposition, People Power Party (PPP), has increased to 32.4, according to the said survey.
The margin of error of the said survey is a plus or minus 2.0 percentage points, with a confidence level of 95 percent.
The fall started when Moon's administration struggled to address people's clamor on the alleged speculative land purchases by the government officials on the state-owned housing supply enterprise.
The officials from the Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH) had allegedly bought lands in the Gwangmyeong-Siheung in Gyeonggi Province and to some other regions near Seoul, just ahead of the announcement from the government that new residential towns had been planned to be built to stabilize real estate market.
The outcome of the initial internal probe into relevant suspicions was released by the government to the public last week, and many had expressed their disappointment with it. The police department had also separately expanded their investigations with the issue.
It is said that the controversies associated with the LH posed a "downside risk" for the Moon administration's approval rating.
Because of the issue, the opposition is already gaining momentum for the next election, while the Moon administration's approval rating might continue sloping downwards if the issue is not addressed as soon as possible.
