Moon's approval rating dips to 4-month low

President Moon Jae-in's approval rating dipped to 48.7 percent, the lowest point in four months, a poll showed Monday amid growing controversies over his policies on the real estate market, irregular workers and North Korea.

The result is based on Realmeter's survey of 2,515 eligible voters nationwide, conducted from July 6 to July 10 at the request of the cable news channel YTN. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points and the confidence level is 95 percent.

The latest figure marks a decline of 1.1 percentage points from the previous week..

It was the seventh week in a row that Moon's approval rate has declined.

A total of 46.5 percent of the poll's respondents "negatively" assessed Moon's government operation, the highest reading since the third week of March's 47.9 percent.

Realmeter attributed the weekly decline to a number of simmering controversies on the government's real estate and North Korea policies as well as the state-run Incheon International Airport Corporation's plan to grant regular employment status to subcontracted security guards.

"The stalemate in inter-Korean relations, the controversy over the Incheon International Airport Corp.'s employment plan, as well as [public] disappointment with the real estate policy continued to have a constant impact on the fall of the approval rating," according to Realmeter.

The research firm said the latest poll result, however, was little affected by the death of late Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon who took his own life last Thursday and was found dead on a mountain in Seoul the next day.

A drop in Moon's approval rating was reported in all age groups in the latest survey, except among voters in their 30s. The approval rating among that age cohort, considered part of Moon's support base, jumped 8.4 percentage points, rebounding from a deep dive during the previous week, the poll showed.

The approval rating for the ruling Democratic Party (DP) rose 1.4 percentage points to 39.7 percent, while the corresponding number for the main opposition United Future Party (UFP) edged down by 0.4 percentage points to 29.7 percent.

Yonhap