President Kim Garners High Approval Rating

President Kim Dae Jung's popularity is still very high according to a JoongAng Ilbo poll of 2004 readers throughout the nation. The telephone poll was done to mark Kim's first-year anniversary on February 25.
His approval rating reached 70.7 percent as of February 21, higher than the 67.6 percent he attained last year.
Last September when a string of political investigations and the apparent stagnation of the economy's restructuring loomed, his popularity plunged to the 50-percent level.
However, since that time it has progressively gotten better chiefly based on positive signs that the economy is recovering. His economic policies were supported by 75.5 percent of those polled.
With his personal popularity up, his party, the National Congress for New Politics(NCNP), also improved to 33.4 percent.
People strongly preferred the current presidential system(66.6 percent), over a parliamentary system which only 25.8 percent of respondents favored .