``Economic Policy Was Wrong``-- 80 Percent.

`Donga Survey of People`s Sentiment` which had been conducted every 3 months for a year since October last year, has just finished its 5th survey. People`s sentiment indicators remained negative both this time and a year ago. They showed that the social condition had not been improved, that distrust in politics had remained the same, that people had no expectation in economic policy.

According to the result of the 5th survey, 77 percent of respondents answered that our nation was being `misguided`. The same negative answer appeared a year ago (76.8 percent). To the question as to ``Is our society good to live in?`` 64.3 percent answered negatively.

In regard to the General Assembly, an indicator showed extreme distrust in politicians as 9 out of 10 people expressed their dissatisfaction, answering negatively, both this time and a year ago. 8 out of 10 people responded negatively to the government`s economic policy.

In evaluating whether President Kim Dae-Jung was doing well, 39.7 percent answered `Agreed` whereas 56 percent said `Disagreed`. This indicated that the percent of those supporting President Kim, which had continued to fall down until the 4th survey, increased a little this time, but decrease by 8.5 percent in comparison with a year ago.

Meanwhile, to the question as to which among the ruling and opposition party candidates should be elected at the next year`s presidential election `the opposition party` marked 31.6 percent, thus 10.1 percent higher than `the ruling party` which marked 21.5 percent. However, 46.3 percent of the respondents answered `None` (9.6 percent) and `Don`t Know` (36.7 percent).

Concerning a Korea-Japan summit meeting scheduled on Oct. 15, 53. 4 percent of respondents answered negatively, saying Japanese Prime Minster`s visit to Korea would not be helpful for the improvement of Korea-Japan relationship, whereas 38.2 percent answered positively that it would be helpful.

The survey was conducted by a professional research service institute Research & Research, which polled 1,500 men and women over the age of 20 on the phone for Oct. 8 and 9, and its credibility level remained within the range of 95 percent with ±2.5 percent of standard error.

sunny60@donga.com