68 Percent See “Bad Exercise of Politics by the President;” 67 Percent “Oppose Resignation Due to Close Aides Scandal”

President Roh’s rate of approval keeps on falling and for the first time dropped to 20 percent.

Dong-A Ilbo asked the Korea Research Center (KRC) to carry out a poll late last year, which found that only 23.6% answered positively to the question of whether or not the president did his duty well. Meanwhile, 68.5% answered negatively.

This is 11.4% lower than last October’s approval rate of 35.0%. Also compared with last March’s 72.1%, it fell 48.5% in only nine months.

However, regarding the prosecution’s investigation of whether Mr. Roh has anything to do with his close aides’ scandal, only 22.1% replied that the president “has to resign by duty” whereas 67.0% said that “that is not necessary.”

This result can be understood as people not wanting anxiety over the state of the country regardless of how badly it is ruled.

Furthermore, only 35.0% think that investigation of Roh’s corruption of close aides and presidential election fund, and the opposition party’s presidential election funds, is being carried out fair and thoroughly. However, a massive 46.0% think it is not.

Meanwhile, to the question, “Which party’s candidate are you supporting this April?” 18.5% replied Hannara party, 14.9% Uri party and 12.0% answered for Minju party. For the presidential election, “the handover of political power and change of generations” (29.7%) and “the investigation of illegal presidential election fund” (23.1%) are expected to be hot issues.

This opinion poll was first carried out last December 27 and 28 among 3687people all over the country, and 1045 more participated on December 30 just after the announcement of the result of the prosecution investigation.

sunny60@donga.com