President Moon Jae-in's approval rating continued to rise this week amid a controversy over alleged political maneuvering by former conservative administrations, a poll showed Thursday.

The president's approval rating was 68.5 percent in a survey of 2,059 adults throughout the nation conducted Sunday through Wednesday, according to Realmeter.

The result marked a 0.8 percentage point increase from the 67.7 percent tallied from Sept. 25-29. The local pollster skipped its weekly survey last week as the country enjoyed a rare weeklong break that included the three-day Chuseok holiday, the Korean autumn harvest celebration.


The rise was partly attributed to the recent controversy over allegations that the Lee Myung-bak administration, the immediate predecessor of the former Park Geun-hye government, may have used government offices, including spy agencies, to attack and illegally gather information on its political rivals.

"The political debate over alleged misdeeds by the Lee Myung-bak administration appears to have led to the defection of some conservative forces, as well as the rise of liberal and centrist forces in numbers -- which in turn may have worked positively on the recovery of President Moon's approval rating," Realmeter said.

Of all respondents, 25.5 percent said they did not approve of the way the president managed state affairs, down 0.5 percentage point from two weeks earlier. The survey had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent.

The approval rating of Moon's ruling Democratic Party gained 0.5 percentage point over the cited period to 50.2 percent, while that of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party advanced 1.9 percentage points to 19 percent.

The splinter Bareun Party scored 5.3 percent, down 0.3 percentage point, and the liberal People's Party saw its approval rating slip 1.4 percentage points to 5.2 percent.

The approval rating of the progressive Justice Party came to 4.7 percent, down 1.3 percentage points. (Yonhap)