Moon’s approval rating falls to lowest since inauguration

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest point since his inauguration. Notably, his approval rating among the moderate group, who played a pivotal role in the birth of his administration, has declined to 32 percent.

According to a Gallup Korea survey released Friday, the portion of the respondents who replied “the president is doing well in his performance” only came to 39 percent, a rate on par with the previously lowest level.

Those who replied “the president is doing poorly” in the assessment of his job performance accounted for 51 percent, up 3 percentage points from 48 percent, while 10 percent of the respondents refrained from giving an answer. The rates of those who have positive and negative views on Moon’s performance were moving up and down the mid-40 percent level each from mid-August to the third week of November. But the gap widened to 8 percentage points last week, and 12 percentage points this week. As for reasons for disapproval, 22 percent of the respondents cited “real estate policy,” 9 percent each picked “conflict between the Justice Ministry and the prosecution” and “poor overall,” while 8 percent singled out “HR affairs,” and 7 percent “inadequately addressing problems in the economy and people’s livelihood.”

In particular, respondents who have a positive view on the president’s performance among the moderate group fell to 32 percent, suggesting that his approval rating is declining faster in this group than the overall population.

Among the moderate group, 60 percent replied “the president is doing poorly.” In the moderate group, 52 percent of the respondents replied “We want transition of power” in a question regarding the 2022 presidential election. Only 36 percent of them said they want the incumbent liberal government stays in power. The gap between those who wanted the incumbent (liberal) government staying in power (46 percent), and those wanting power transition (44) was within the margin of error up until the survey conducted in the second week of November, but the gap widened in just three weeks.


Eun-Taek Lee nabi@donga.com