A poll on the 17th found that President Lee Jae-myung's job approval slipped slightly for a second straight week to 52%.
Korea Gallup surveyed 1,003 adults nationwide ages 18 and older from the 14th to the 16th and found that 52% of respondents positively evaluated the president's job performance. That was down 1 percentage point from the previous week's survey.
Negative evaluations was found at 37%, up 2 percentage points from the previous survey. Those who withheld an opinion were 11% of the total.
The top reason for a positive job evaluation was "diplomacy" at 21%. That was followed by "economy and livelihoods" (19%), "overall doing well" (8%), and "job competence" (7%).
The reason for negative evaluations was tallied at 16% for "economy, livelihoods, and high exchange rate." "Real estate policy" (11%) ranked second, followed by "overall doing poorly" (7%) and "morality issues, evading own trial" and "dictatorship, dogmatism" (5%).
In party support, the Democratic Party of Korea recorded 40% and the People Power Party 26%. The Democratic Party fell 2 percentage points from the previous survey, while the People Power Party rose 2 percentage points. The Rebuilding Korea Party and the Reform Party each had 2%, and The Progressive Party had 1%. Those with no party affiliation was tallied at 28%.
On the question of whether to keep or abolish prosecutors' supplementary investigation authority, 61% responded that it should be maintained "to check the police and prevent sloppy investigations," while 23% said it should be fully abolished "under the principle of separating indictment and investigation." Sixteen percent withheld an opinion.
Regarding whether to approve Rep. Han Dong-hoon, who was elected as an independent in the Busan Buk-gap by-election on Jun. 6, rejoining the People Power Party, 28% expressed support and 37% opposition was found. Thirty-five percent withheld an opinion.
However, the balance of support and opposition varied by respondents' party support. Among those who said they support the People Power Party, support was 42%, opposition 44%, and 15% withheld an opinion. Among Democratic Party supporters, withholding an opinion was most common at 41%, with 39% opposed and 20% in support. Among the unaffiliated, withholding an opinion was also most common at 47%, and support (24%) and opposition (29%) were similar.
The survey was conducted via computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) with live interviewers calling randomly generated mobile virtual numbers. The margin of error was ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, and the response rate was 11.1%. For details, see the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.