Lee's approval rating drops for fourth straight week while PPP's reaches highest level in almost a year: Poll
Following the June 3 local elections, President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating fell for the fourth consecutive week to hit 51.5 percent. Meanwhile, the People Power Party's approval rating reached 44.3 percent, its highest level of support since the Lee administration took office, to overtake the Democratic Party's.
President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating fell for a fourth consecutive week to 51.5 percent, and support for the People Power Party (PPP) surpassed that of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) by a margin outside the poll's margin of error.
In a survey conducted by Realmeter on behalf of the Economy Business Newspaper between June 8 and Friday, 51.5 percent of 2,515 people aged 18 or older gave a positive assessment of Lee's performance as president.
The figure was down 3.7 percentage points from the previous week.
Negative evaluations stood at 44.2 percent, up 3.2 percentage points from the previous week. Meanwhile, 4.3 percent said that they were unsure.
Lee's approval rating has steadily declined since the second week of May, when it reached 60.5 percent. He then received a positive assessment by 59.3 percent of participants in the third week of May, 59.1 percent in the fourth week of May and 55.2 percent in the first week of June.
"The continued decline in positive evaluations appears to be driven by growing political turmoil over the fallout from ballot shortages and vote-counting errors in the June 3 local elections, which has fueled criticism of the National Election Commission's poor management," Realmeter said.
"At the same time, economic headwinds, such as a weak won and high inflation, have increased [financial] pressure on livelihoods."
In another survey conducted on Thursday and Friday, 44.3 percent of 1,002 people aged 18 or older said that they supported the PPP.
The figure was up 3.2 percentage points from the previous week and marked the party's highest level of support since the Lee administration took office.
"It appears that [the PPP] has attracted support from progressive and moderate voters, as well as people in their 20s, by taking the lead with a hard-line response to the controversies surrounding the local election, including calls for a parliamentary investigation and a special counsel bill targeting the National Election Commission," Realmeter said.
Support for the DP fell 3.8 percentage points from the previous week to 38 percent. It was the first time in about 10 months that support for the party had fallen into the 30 percent range.
The gap between the two parties stood at 6.3 percentage points, putting the PPP ahead by a margin outside the survey's margin of error.
"Amid debates over responsibility for the June 3 local election results and […] election management failures, [the DP experienced] intensifying internal conflicts over party leader Jeong Cheong-rae's leadership, with calls for his resignation," Realmeter said regarding the decline in support for the DP.
"Support [for the DP] had notably eroded among key support bases, including Gyeonggi, Incheon and Honam, and among progressive voters," the pollster added, using the term Honam to refer to the region that encompasses Gwangju, North Jeolla and South Jeolla.
Support for the Rebuilding Korea Party stood at 3.7 percent, followed by the Reform Party at 2.8 percent and the Progressive Party at 1.2 percent. Other parties accounted for 2.2 percent, and 7.8 percent of respondents said that they didn't support any party.
Both surveys were conducted using mobile phone-based automated response systems.
The presidential approval survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points with a 95 percent confidence level. The party support survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. Response rates were 4.3 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.
BY HAN YOUNG-HYE [[email protected]]
