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Moon's approval rating slips for third week amid N. Korean provocations

Sept. 18, 2017 - 09:56 By Yonhap
President Moon Jae-in's approval rating continued to drop last week, a poll showed Monday, amid recent provocations from North Korea that have caused serious security concerns here.

In a poll conducted by Realmeter, 67.1 percent of 2,524 voters surveyed said they approved of the way the president managed state affairs, down 2 percentage points from a week earlier.

The weekly poll was conducted between Monday and Friday, and has a margin of error of 1.9 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent. The latest reading marked the third consecutive week of decline.
 
(Yonhap)

The local pollster partly attributed the drop to what it called prolonged security concerns caused by North Korea's recent nuclear and missile provocations.

Pyongyang staged its sixth and possibly most powerful nuclear test so far Sept. 3, followed by the launch of what appeared to be an intermediate range ballistic missile Friday, marking its 16th missile test since the start of the year and the 10th since the Moon administration took office in May.

Of all respondents, 26.8 percent said they did not approve of the president's management of state affairs, up 2.2 percentage points from a week earlier.

The ruling Democratic Party also suffered a slight drop in its own approval rating, while that of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party increased for a second consecutive week.

The ruling party's approval rating came to 49.3 percent, down 0.4 percentage point from a week earlier. That of the LKP gained 1.7 percentage points on-week to 18.4 percent.

The ratings of both the liberal People's Party and the progressive Justice Party advanced at the same rate of 0.1 percentage point to 5.8 percent.

The splinter conservative Bareun Party saw its rating drop 1.3 percentage points to 5 percent, the lowest among the five major political parties here. (Yonhap)