Moon's government approval rating falls 4.6%p to 53.6%... Impact of North Korea provocations [Realmeter]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] President Moon Jae-in's approval rating for his administration's performance has fallen, showing the largest drop since the beginning of the year. This decline is analyzed to be due to the deterioration of inter-Korean relations following North Korea's demolition of the Kaesong Inter-Korean Joint Liaison Office.

According to Realmeter's survey commissioned by tbs conducted from the 15th to the 17th, the positive evaluation of President Moon's administration dropped by 4.6 percentage points from the previous week's aggregate to 53.6%, announced on the 18th. Meanwhile, negative evaluations rose by 4.1 percentage points to 41.1%. The 'Don't know/No response' category accounted for 5.3%.

The gap between positive and negative evaluations narrowed to 12.5 percentage points, the smallest since the second week of April when the general election took place. This downward trend appears to be due to the near collapse of inter-Korean relations following North Korea's demolition of the Kaesong Inter-Korean Joint Liaison Office. In particular, as North Korea-related issues have emerged as a political topic, there is also a trend of increased consolidation within both conservative and progressive camps.

Looking at daily indicators, after closing at 59.3% (negative evaluation 36.2%) on the 12th, the approval rating declined to 55.8% on the 15th (down 3.5 percentage points, negative evaluation 39.0%), 55.2% on the 16th (down 0.6 percentage points, negative evaluation 39.3%), and 53.5% on the 17th (down 1.7 percentage points, negative evaluation 40.9%), showing a downward trend.

By respondent characteristics, the decline was led by Daegu-Gyeongbuk (down 10.3 percentage points), people in their 20s (down 12.3 percentage points) and 40s (down 10.1 percentage points), the non-affiliated group (down 10.6 percentage points), and the moderate group (down 6 percentage points).

Regarding party support, the Democratic Party of Korea fell by 0.9 percentage points from the previous week to 41.4%, and the United Future Party dropped by 0.4 percentage points to 27.5%. The Open Democratic Party declined by 0.8 percentage points to 4.9%, and the Justice Party decreased by 0.9 percentage points to 4.7%. The People’s Party recorded 3.9%.

This survey contacted 32,598 voters aged 18 and over nationwide, with a final 1,507 respondents completing the survey, resulting in a 4.6% response rate. The sampling error is ±2.5 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.