Lee's approval rating falls below 40% for 1st time

President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating fell below the 40 percent mark for the first time since he took office in June last year, a survey showed Monday, amid public dissatisfaction over housing policy.

According to the survey conducted by Realmeter and commissioned by the EKN newspaper among 2,509 respondents aged 18 and older, 38.9 percent gave a positive assessment of Lee's performance, down 1.3 percentage points from the previous week, while 58.7 percent gave a negative assessment, up 1.8 percentage points.

Realmeter attributed the decline to growing public dissatisfaction over housing prices and controversy over the presidential office's refusal to appoint a Supreme Court justice nominee, as well as public distrust of the police following a missing woman incident on the southern island of Jeju.

Earlier this month, Lee's office decided not to nominate one of two Supreme Court justice candidates recommended by the chief justice after the recommendations were made without prior consultations with the office.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.

In a separate survey conducted by the same pollster on 1,006 individuals aged 18 and over on Thursday and Friday, the approval rating for the ruling Democratic Party rose 1.2 percentage points from a week earlier to 43.1 percent.

The approval rating for the main opposition People Power Party also rose 0.1 percentage point to 37.7 percent.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, with a confidence level of 95 percent.

Yonhap