These five pressures are driving President Lee's approval rating to new lows

The slide showed no signs of stopping. President Lee Jae Myung's Gallup Korea job approval rating fell into the 30 percent range for the first time since he took office one year and three months ago.

As inevitable as it may be for a president's approval rating to drop after taking office, it's the sheer speed at which his supporters have turned away that is alarming.

Lee received a positive job approval rating of 38 percent in a mobile phone interview survey conducted by Gallup Korea from Tuesday to Thursday, down 2 percentage points from the previous week and the lowest since his inauguration. His negative rating remained unchanged at 51 percent, while 11 percent withheld an opinion.

The fall has been quite accelerated. Lee's rating was hovering above 60 percent as recently as early May before falling to 54 percent in the first week of July. It has dropped 26 percentage points in just 10 weeks.

That means Lee reached the 30 percent range earlier in his presidency than former Presidents Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in did. Moon first fell to 39 percent two years and five months into his presidency amid a scandal surrounding former Justice Minister Cho Kuk. Park recorded 37 percent for the first time one year and nine months into her presidency amid the leak of documents hinting at a murky confidant.

“We see this as the combined result of not only political factors but also various policy issues, including real estate and the stock market, and we are taking the public's voice very seriously,” presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said Friday in response to a question about the poll. “The presidential office will explain matters with greater care, sincerity and consideration in a way that meets the public's expectations and work to restore trust in the administration.”

Lee is likely to hold a press conference this week to address various pending issues. As Kang said, Lee faces questions over both “political factors” and “various policy issues.” Five main issues remain at large for Lee.

1. Cabinet member recruitment goes awry

In the short term, personnel appointments are weighing most heavily on public sentiment.

In the Gallup Korea survey, the reasons respondents gave for negatively assessing Lee were: his real estate policy, 24 percent; appointments of government personnel, 16 percent; and the economy and people's livelihoods, 10 percent. In particular, the proportion citing personnel appointments surged from 1 percent to 9 percent and then to 16 percent over the past two weeks.

Controversies surrounding Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won over allegations that he sought favors to secure approval for a new drug clinical trial and Gender Equality and Family Minister nominee Yong Hye-in, who withdrew her bid on Sunday, intensified in quick succession.

The opposition bloc is pressing Lee to withdraw Kim's nomination.

In Friday's Gallup Korea poll, 43 percent considered Kim unsuitable, compared to 22 percent who found him suitable. Among supporters of the ruling Democratic Party (DP), however, 42 percent of respondents found him suitable for the role, compared to 22 percent who said he was unsuitable.

The presidential office has said it will wait until the confirmation hearings.

“We are always listening to the public's voice,” Kang said Friday. “But our position remains unchanged: Ministerial nominees should be given an opportunity to explain themselves to the public.”

2. Real estate prices up, approval ratings down

Real estate is another subject Lee is expected to address. He once expressed strong confidence in the issue but has become noticeably less vocal recently, as Seoul apartment prices have risen for 86 consecutive weeks, showing instability that surpasses even that seen under the Moon administration.

The shift is also reflected in public sentiment. By age group, Lee's approval rating among people in their 40s fell sharply from 55 percent to 45 percent. By region, his rating in Seoul stood at 29 percent, the lowest nationwide and even below the 34 percent recorded in Daegu and North Gyeongsang — the conservative bloc’s traditional electoral bastions.

Some analysts also say a series of controversies tied to Lee's legal risks, including moves within the ruling bloc in early May to push a “fabricated prosecution special counsel bill” containing a provision allowing indictments to be withdrawn, contributed to the loss of support among centrist voters. Critics say the bill is designed to allow prosecutors to drop open cases against Lee.

3. The debated constitutional reform

Discussions over a constitutional revision to allow presidential re-election have also hurt Lee.

Political figures are increasingly debating constitutional amendments that could introduce either a four-year, two-term presidency or a system allowing a president to seek re-election, and Lee has not explicitly ruled out seeking another term himself. The current Korean Constitution allows the president to serve a single five-year term.

Lee did say that his term is "clearly limited under the Constitution" during a meeting with Korean residents in France on Wednesday as he reiterated his position on the issue, but again did not specify that he "will not run for another term." Presidential aides sought to explain his remark but failed to quell the controversy.

4. To deploy or not to deploy

Other pending issues awaiting answers from Lee include the recent debate over deploying Korean forces to the Strait of Hormuz, the abolition of the Prosecutors' Office, now less than a month away, and police reform.

Lee did not directly address the question of a deployment to the Strait of Hormuz during a meeting he chaired with senior secretaries and aides at the presidential office on Friday.

“At a time when the international order is passing through a tunnel of extreme turmoil, we need more than ever the wisdom to strengthen our capabilities, broaden our diplomatic horizons and resolve various problems through close cooperation with the international community,” Lee said. “We must quietly forge that path while thinking only about a better tomorrow for the people and the national interest.”

In Friday's Gallup Korea poll, 55 percent said Korea should not send military personnel or assets to the Strait of Hormuz, compared to 32 percent who said it should.

5. Investigative reform also at issue

On prosecution reform, Lee had previously spoken of the need to give prosecutors supplementary investigative authority but agreed to their complete abolition ahead of the DP's national convention.

Immediately after returning from France on Thursday, Lee instructed the Justice Ministry to revise and supplement its recently drafted organizational plan for the Prosecution Service and affiliated agencies, as well as an enforcement decree governing the number of prosecutors. The proposed “Judicial Control Bureau” and the plan to maintain the current number of prosecutors became points of contention.

Some political figures have interpreted the move as reflecting concern about a backlash among Lee's supporters over the nomination of a former prosecutor as the final candidate to head the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, a new agency created as part of Lee’s prosecutorial reform effort.

So can he recover?

Whether the upcoming press conference provides an opportunity for Lee's approval rating to rebound or instead accelerates its decline will ultimately depend on the diagnosis and solutions he offers.

Within the ruling bloc, there are signs that the 30 percent level is regarded as the "last hold" for Lee's approval rating, and falling below it could be interpreted as a sign that even his core supporters are abandoning him. Concerns are also growing that if a “decoupling” occurs in which the president's approval rating falls below that of the ruling party, his ability to drive the administration's agenda could weaken sharply in his second year in office.

“President Lee's strength has been his leadership in closely examining state affairs, to the point that people have described him as personally overseeing everything,” a DP lawmaker believed to be close to Lee said. “Recently, however, there has been a tendency to become too absorbed in achievements. He should use this as an opportunity to review the administration as a whole from the perspective of looking more deeply at people's lives rather than focusing on achievements and return to the fundamentals of his leadership.”

BY OH HYUN-SEOK, WI MOON-HEE [[email protected]]