19% approval rating in US polls, ‘last’ among leaders in 22 major countries
Gallup, positive 1%p↑ compared to the previous week, negative… Bottom line, interest in rebound
There are many negative opinions regarding responding to heavy rain… Press conference to celebrate 100 days of inauguration
The Yun Seok-yeol administration, which celebrated its 100th day in office on the 17th, is struggling with declining approval ratings. President Yoon, who took office on May 10, started with an approval rating in the low 50% range and cruised through the June 1 local elections. During this time, the approval rating of the people’s power also recorded the highest in seven years and six months, and thanks to the ‘convention effect’ of President Yoon’s inauguration, he won a landslide victory over the Democratic Party in the branch election.
President Yoon Seok-yeol. yunhap news
However, this ‘good wind’ did not last long. About 50 days following taking office, President Yoon’s approval rating reached a ‘dead cross’ (a situation in which negative evaluations outweigh positive ones) from the end of June to the beginning of July. Opinion polls showed a marked decline in positive public opinion. Up until this time, President Yoon said, “The approval rating is not very meaningful,” and “only thinks of the people,” giving off an atmosphere of insignificance. And a few days later, Yoon’s approval rating fell below 40%. Various controversies arose in the process of appointing his first cabinet, and it was at the time when the Party Ethics Committee decided to take disciplinary action once morest Lee Jun-seok, the People’s Power.
From the end of July to the beginning of this month, President Yoon’s approval rating even broke the 30% line and fell to the 20% level. Negative ratings continued to rise, even exceeding 70%. A situation has arisen that the president’s approval rating is low enough to be called the ‘inauguration virtue’, and concerns have arisen that even the driving force of the government at the beginning of the administration will be set aside. Because of this, there was also a prediction that President Yoon, who returned from vacation, would make a ‘public apology’, but President Yoon replaced it by saying, “I will keep the original intention and uphold the will of the people.” President Yoon is expected to hold a press conference on the 100th day of his inauguration to explain his future direction of government and seek the understanding of the people.
The reason for the drop in approval ratings… 3 scenes where the public mind turned around
There were several key factors behind the decline in President Yoon’s approval rating. The first is a personnel failure, the second is the disciplinary action once morest Lee Jun-seok of the People’s Power, and the third is the controversy over hiring close associates of the presidential office, such as Kim Kun-hee, an employee.
In various opinion polls, the ‘personnel’ issue is cited as the main reason for the decline in the Yoon administration’s approval rating. The Yoon administration, which has not yet completed the appointment of the first cabinet, added a sixth case of failure to appoint a high-ranking public official as Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Park Soon-ae recently resigned. Previously, five people resigned voluntarily during the candidate verification stage, and Deputy Prime Minister Park is the first to resign following taking office. Deputy Prime Minister Park, who was appointed despite controversies such as ‘drunk driving’, ‘plagiarism of thesis’, and ‘writing for children’s birth’, resigned following not being able to overcome protests once morest the school system reform proposal.
Park Soon-ae, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education. yunhap news
Since Kim In-cheol, a candidate for deputy prime minister and education minister, who caused controversy over ‘Daddy Chance’, resigned on May 3rd, officials of the Yun government failed to explain the allegations. In the same month, Kim Seong-hoe, secretary for religious and multiculturalism in the presidential secretary’s office, resigned due to controversy over ‘hate speech’, and health and welfare minister candidate Jeong Ho-young also dropped out due to controversy over ‘father’s chance’ and military service for his children’s transfer to medical school.
On the 4th of last month, Kim Seung-hee, a candidate for Minister of Health and Welfare, who was under investigation for violating the Political Funds Act, resigned. It is pointed out that the same government department minister candidate has failed consecutively, as well as a ‘vacation in the Ministry of Welfare’ at the time of the re-spread of the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19). On the 10th of the same month, Song Ok-ryeol, the nominee for the Fair Trade Commission, resigned following 7 days of nomination. Shortly following the nomination, candidate Song was embroiled in controversy over sexual harassment remarks he made to students while he was a professor at Seoul National University Law School.
It is analyzed that even some of the existing supporters have changed their minds from President Yoon when it was revealed that the disciplinary action of Lee Jun-seok was also ‘Yoon Shim’. Following Lee’s claim that ‘Yun Hak-kwan’ (a key official of President Yoon) led the disciplinary action, Lee’s chief of staff, Park Seong-min, who is classified as a representative ‘pro-yun-gye’, suddenly resigned before the ethics committee decided. There was a lot of speculation that he left. After the Ethics Committee imposed a severe punishment on Lee, the telegram message shared between President Yoon and floor leader Kwon Seong-dong on the 26th of last month supported the suspicion that ‘Hack-Kwan Yoon’ and ‘Shim Yoon’ were one. At that time, President Yoon sent a text message to floor leader Kwon, saying, “It has changed since the party leader, who used to shoot internally, has changed,” exacerbating public opinion.
Representative Lee Jun-seok of People’s Power. yunhap news
In an opinion poll right following Lee was disciplined, President Yoon’s approval rating was in the low 30% range. According to the results of a poll released on the 14th of last month by Embrain Republic, K-Stat Research, Korea Research, and Korea Research, 54% of respondents said that the disciplinary action of the representative was ‘the result of political judgment being involved’, which was ‘a result of going through a fair process’. (31%) was 23 percentage points higher than the response. Even among the supporters of the People’s Power, 48% of the respondents said that political judgment was involved, more than that of the justified process (39%).
Controversy over private employment within the presidential office, including close friends of First Lady Kim Kun-hee, relatives and acquaintances of President Yoon, and the family of far-right YouTubers, has also continued to erupt. It was the beginning of reports that the people accompanying Kim’s schedule were Kovana Contents employees and were working in the presidential office. Next, the fact that the spouse of Lee Won-mo, the HR secretary in the presidential office, who accompanied the President Yoon and his wife on their visit to Spain and caused controversy over his private performance, worked in the presidential office, and the fact that President Yun’s sixth cousin and the far-right YouTuber Ahn’s sister came to the presidential office. turned out to be hired. In addition, it was confirmed that the son of President Yoon’s Gangwon-do acquaintance is also working on the recommendation of the floor leader Kwon.
The presidential office explained that it was a fair recruitment and there was no legal problem, but it is pointed out that it is difficult to remove the suspicion that it is a ‘acquaintance chance’ in the eyes of the public. The Democratic Party of Korea also mentioned a state investigation over the controversy over hiring employees for the presidential office.
Kun-hee Kim, Mrs. news
Did you fall enough to fall? 19% of U.S. polls, last among 22 major countries
The decline in President Yoon’s approval rating was shown not only in domestic polls but also in global opinion polls. In a survey conducted by the American polling company Morning Consult on the 11th (local time), President Yoon’s approval rating recorded 19%, making him the ‘last’ among the elected national leaders of 22 major countries.
Morning Consult’s ‘GLOBAL LEADER APPROVAL RATINGS’ survey targets 22 countries including the US, UK, Germany, France, Japan, India, Norway, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Italy. An online survey of adults living in the country is conducted every day, and the average value over 7 days is published weekly. President Yoon was included in the investigation on May 11.
Morning Consultant reported that as a result of the survey conducted from the 3rd to the 9th, 19% of the positive evaluations of President Yoon’s state affairs were evaluated, 72% of the negative evaluations, and 9% of the responses such as ‘don’t know/no opinion’. It is the lowest among the surveyed countries. This is lower than British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (27%, 19th), who is regarding to retire early due to various scandals. US President Joe Biden’s approval rating was 40% during the same period, ranking 11th, while Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s approval rating was 41%, 8th. In first place was Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India with 74%.
In Morning Consult’s survey of world leaders’ approval ratings, President Yoon’s approval ratings were always higher than the results of surveys conducted by various domestic polling organizations, and the ‘dead cross’ period, where negative evaluations were higher than positive ones, was regarding a month earlier. However, it is confirmed that the trend is not significantly different.
President Yoon Seok-yeol. yunhap news
Some analysts say that as President Yoon’s approval rating has remained in the 20% range and there has been no significant change, negative evaluations have bottomed out.
As a result of a poll conducted by Gallup Korea on the performance of President Yoon’s duties on 1,000 people aged 18 and over nationwide from the 9th to the 11th, 25% of the votes were positive and 66% were negative. Don’t know and refusal to respond was 6%. The positive evaluation increased by 1 percentage point compared to the previous week, while the negative evaluation remained unchanged. As with last week, there are more opinions that ‘you are doing something wrong’ in most of the respondents’ characteristics (gender, age, region, etc.), but an analysis shows that the decline in the approval rate of the president and the increase in the denial rate have stopped for two months. In the second week of August, during the investigation period, major issues were △re-opening of Gwanghwamun Square △ voluntary resignation of Education Minister Park Soon-ae △ apology for damage caused by torrential rains △ refuting the presidential office once morest China’s three-part complaint.
In this survey, the respondents (253 people) who positively evaluated the performance of President Yoon’s duties were ‘Work hard and do my best’ (15%), ‘I do well in general’ (7%), ‘Real estate policy’ ( 5%) and ‘disaster response’ (3%). On the other hand, respondents who gave a negative evaluation (664 people) cited human resources (24%), lack of experience/qualification/incompetence (14%), and disaster response (6%) as reasons for the negative evaluation. The negative evaluation of ‘disaster response’, which was first mentioned in this survey, was twice as high as the positive evaluation. Gallup analyzed, “It shows that there are conflicting views on how to deal with the recent heavy rains.”
The point that will determine future public opinion on President Yoon is expected to be a press conference held on the 100th day of his inauguration. The President’s Office announced on the 17th that it will hold a press conference in the briefing room on the first floor of the Yongsan Presidential Office for regarding 40 minutes from 10 am. This is the first official press conference since taking office.
The point is how President Yoon will accept and explain the criticisms he has made, and what kind of government management plan he will come up with in the future. The power of the people to normalize the party’s operation and to come up with a policy that can win the public’s sympathy with the government also seems important to recovering the approval rating.
Reporter Jo Sung-min josungmin@segye.com
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