President Park Geun-hye, who enters the third year of her five-year term Wednesday, is being pressed to carry forward her key reform agenda and regain public trust in her leadership.

Her aides say no special event is scheduled to mark the day, probably reflecting the uneasy atmosphere over the high-running public discontent with her job performance. Park’s approval rating, which soared above 60 percent a year ago, is hovering around 30 percent in recent weeks.

Public support for the president has been eroded partly by her uncommunicative leadership style and fumbling with personnel management, which were highlighted by scandals involving her associates accused of meddling in state affairs late last year. But a more fundamental reason why she has lost voter confidence may be her failure to improve the economy and people’s livelihoods. Public discontent was further exacerbated earlier this year by the revised tax settlement scheme that increased the burden on middle-income and working-class households.

Park marked the start of the second year of her tenure with the announcement of an ambitious three-year plan to renovate the economy and strengthen national competitiveness. But more than 80 percent of professors and researchers polled by a civic group this month said her policy measures had gone nowhere.

The president recently reiterated that she would put top priority on revitalizing the economy. In a meeting with her senior secretaries this week, she pledged to boost economic vitality by pushing through reforms in four key areas ― the public sector, finance, labor and education.

Park demonstrated her resolve by saying she would lay the foundation for growth in the three decades to come through reform work during the remaining three years of her term. From this standpoint, the president needs to start afresh by changing her way of running state affairs and communicating with the people.

She seems to be taking the right direction by moving to devolve more authority and responsibility to Cabinet members and reduce the roles of her secretaries. The president should also do more to be in tune with public sentiment to secure impetus to pressing ahead with her policy agenda. It needs to be recalled that a couple of gatherings with citizens in markets and other places in the days ahead of the Lunar New Year last week helped boost her approval rating by a few percentage points.

In this vein, Park should also strengthen efforts to persuade opposition parties to cooperate in passing key bills designed to reinvigorate the economy.

It may be necessary for her to readjust the welfare package promised during her election campaign for fiscal affordability.

She also seems to need this sort of flexibility and practicality in handling frozen relations with North Korea and Japan.

A senior ruling party lawmaker close to Park recently said not all the fruits from her work would be picked during her term and the people would taste them under the next administration. His remark can be understood as indicating Park is in the position to push through tough reform tasks in a bold and nonpartisan manner.

It may be a wish held not only by her but also all sensible citizens that she will leave office with the highest approval rating of any outgoing leader.