Despite Yoon Mi-hyang Controversy, President Moon's Approval Rating Maintains 65% [Gallup]

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] Despite negative developments from the ruling party related to Yoon Mee-hyang, the elected member of the Democratic Party of Korea, President Moon Jae-in's approval rating for his job performance remained in the mid-60% range.

Korea Gallup announced on the 22nd that in a public opinion survey conducted from the 19th to the 21st among 1,000 people aged 18 and older, 65% of respondents gave a positive evaluation of President Moon's job performance. This figure is the same as the previous week. On the other hand, the negative evaluation dropped by 1 percentage point to 26%.

By age group, the positive/negative rates were 58%/30% for ages 18-29 (hereafter '20s'), 66%/26% for 30s, 82%/14% for 40s, 62%/30% for 50s, and 60%/29% for 60 and older. By party support, 89% of Democratic Party supporters positively evaluated the president's job performance, while 65% of United Future Party supporters evaluated it negatively. Among those without party affiliation (independents), the positive/negative rates (42%/38%) showed little difference.

A Gallup official explained, "Since Yoon Mee-hyang is currently not a key figure in the administration, people do not seem to associate her with the party. They see it as a case of personal or civic group corruption and do not think the Democratic Party is at fault."

When asked why they positively evaluated the president's job performance (653 respondents), the reasons were 'Response to COVID-19' (47%), 'Overall good performance' (8%), 'Expansion of welfare', and 'Doing her best/working hard' (both 6%). COVID-19 related responses have been the top reason for positive evaluations for 15 consecutive weeks.

Among those who negatively evaluated the job performance (262 respondents), the reasons cited were 'Lack of solutions to economic and livelihood issues' (21%), 'Inadequate COVID-19 response', 'Overall insufficiency' (both 10%), 'Focus on North Korea relations/pro-North Korea stance', 'Autocratic/one-sided/biased' (both 6%), 'Excessive welfare', 'Bringing up past issues/revenge politics', 'Untrustworthy/unfavorable' (all 4%), 'Real estate policy', and 'Tax increases' (both 3%). Economic and livelihood issues have ranked first as the reason for negative evaluations for seven consecutive weeks.

In party support, the Democratic Party of Korea stood at 46%, United Future Party at 18%, Justice Party at 5%, Open Democratic Party at 4%, and People's Party at 3%.

Compared to the previous week, support for the Democratic Party rose by 2 percentage points, while the United Future Party and Justice Party fell by 1 and 2 percentage points respectively. Support for the Open Democratic Party and People's Party remained unchanged.

This survey contacted 8,007 adults aged 18 and older nationwide, with a final 1,000 respondents completing the survey, resulting in a 13% response rate. The sampling error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For more details, refer to the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.