Seoul: President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating fell for a second consecutive week, a survey showed Monday, amid controversy over a special counsel team's raid on the main opposition party's headquarters.
According to Yonhap News Agency, commissioned by a local news outlet, 53 percent of respondents gave a positive assessment of Lee's job performance, a decrease of 1.5 percentage points from the previous week. Meanwhile, the negative assessment climbed by 2.5 percentage points to 43.6 percent. Realmeter noted that political issues, such as disputes over judicial independence and the special counsel team's raid on the People Power Party (PPP) headquarters, contributed to the negative sentiment among the public.
The ruling Democratic Party (DP) has recently escalated its efforts to remove Supreme Court Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae. The party accuses him of protecting individuals involved in former President Yoon Suk Yeol's alleged martial law imposition by delaying their trials. This move has sparked criticism from the PPP, which argues that the DP's actions jeopardize the constitutional principle of separation of powers and threaten judicial independence.
In addition, the PPP condemned last week's raid by the special counsel, which is investigating claims that Unification Church members joined the PPP en masse before the party's 2023 leadership race. The allegations suggest that the aim was to influence the election results in favor of Rep. Kweon Seong-dong, a former close ally of Yoon.
The survey, conducted on 2,526 adults from Monday to Friday last week, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, with a confidence rate of 95 percent. In a separate survey by the same pollster, conducted on 1,007 individuals aged 18 and over Thursday and Friday, the approval rating for the DP slightly decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 44.2 percent, while support for the PPP increased by 2.2 percentage points to 38.6 percent. This poll carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, with a confidence rate of 95 percent.