Lee's approval rating remains below 50% for another week

SEOUL, June 29 (AJP) - President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating has stayed below 50 percent for another week, extending its decline for six consecutive weeks.

In a survey of more than 2,500 adults nationwide conducted by pollster Realmeter last week and released on Monday, 46.5 percent of respondents said Lee was doing well, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous week.

About 49.5 percent disapproved of Lee's performance, also down 0.2 percentage points, but still higher than the approval rating. About 4 percent remained undecided.

Realmeter attributed the decline to ongoing disputes over prosecution reform as well as controversy surrounding a mega project to build a large chip cluster in the country's southwestern regions including Gwangju and South Jeolla Province.

Although the honeymoon period for the Lee administration does not appear to be over yet, it remains to be seen whether Lee, who took office in June last year and marked his first anniversary earlier this month, can reverse the decline, as previous presidents typically saw their approval ratings fall below 50 percent around two years into their presidencies and were unable to recover.

When asked about party preference in a separate survey of about 1,000 adults conducted last Thursday and Friday, almost equal portions of respondents supported the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), with 40 percent backing the DP and 42 percent supporting the PPP.

Among minor partis, the liberal Rebuilding Korea Party garnered 3.7 percent, followed by the centrist Reform Party (RP) at 2.8 percent and the left-wing Progressive Party at 1.5 percent. Some 6.9 percent supported none of the parties.