Seoul: President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating has declined to 52.2 percent, as revealed by a recent survey, amidst ongoing worries over trade negotiations with the United States and a significant disruption in online government services due to a fire at a state data center.
According to Yonhap News Agency, commissioned by a local news outlet, the latest survey indicates a 1.3 percentage point drop in positive assessments of President Lee's job performance from the previous poll. Conversely, negative evaluations have shown a slight increase, rising by 1.6 percentage points to reach 44.9 percent.
Realmeter attributed the downturn in approval to multiple factors, including apprehensions about the ongoing tariff discussions with the U.S., the recent nationwide outage of online government services following last month's data center fire, and President Lee's controversial appearance on a TV cooking show. The survey also highlighted public discontent regarding the government's handling of employment scams and the confinement of South Koreans in Cambodia as contributing factors to the negative sentiment.
President Lee's approval rating had seen a recovery for the first time in four weeks in the previous poll conducted from September 29 to October 2, before experiencing a decline once again in the latest figures. The recent survey was conducted on 2,518 adults from Monday to Friday last week, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points and a confidence rate of 95 percent.
In a related survey by the same pollster, conducted on 1,008 individuals aged 18 and over on Thursday and Friday, the approval rating for the ruling Democratic Party also saw a decline of 0.7 percentage points, settling at 46.5 percent. Meanwhile, support for the main opposition People Power Party rose by 0.8 percentage points, reaching 36.7 percent. This poll carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, with a confidence rate of 95 percent.