Lee's approval rating hits new low at 42%, disapproval crosses 50%: Gallup Korea

President Lee Jae Myung's job approval rating has hit a new post-inauguration low, according to polling results released Friday. Growing public dissatisfaction with the government and ruling party's recent real estate policies and the abolition of prosecutors' supplementary investigative powers are the primary drivers of the decline, analysts say.

In its fourth-week August regular poll, Gallup Korea surveyed 1,001 people aged 18 and older nationwide from Tuesday through Thursday and found that 42 percent gave a positive assessment of Lee's job performance.

That is 2 percentage points below the previous record low of 44 percent recorded in the second-week August survey released Aug. 14, setting yet another all-time low. Lee's approval had edged back up to 45 percent in last week's poll but fell 3 percentage points again in the latest survey.

Disapproval of the president's job performance also reached a post-inauguration high of 50 percent in the fourth-week August poll. Eight percent of respondents withheld judgment.

Among those who rated Lee positively, the most commonly cited reasons were diplomacy (16 percent), the economy and livelihoods (11 percent), and overall performance and communication (7 percent each). Among those who rated him negatively, real estate policy was the top complaint at 27 percent, followed by the reduction of prosecutorial powers (7 percent), the economy and livelihoods (7 percent), and ethical concerns including Lee's avoidance of his own trial (7 percent).

Negative ratings outpaced positive ones across all age groups except those in their 40s (56 percent positive) and 50s (51 percent positive). Respondents aged 18 to 29 recorded the lowest approval of any age group at 31 percent, while those in their 30s (35 percent), 60s (38 percent) and 70s and older (40 percent) also showed more disapproval than approval.

Party support stood at 39 percent for the Democratic Party of Korea and 25 percent for the People Power Party. The Democratic Party slipped 2 percentage points from the previous survey, while the PPP held steady. It is the third time on a weekly survey basis that the ruling party's support has fallen below 40 percent since the Lee administration took office.

The Rebuilding Korea Party followed at 4 percent, the Reform Party at 3 percent and the Progressive Party at 1 percent. Those with no party affiliation accounted for 26 percent of respondents.

The survey was conducted via telephone interviews using randomly selected virtual mobile numbers. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. The contact rate was 45.6 percent and the response rate was 9.5 percent. Further details are available on the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.