President Park Geun-hye’s approval rating was not significantly affected by a corruption scandal involving her aide, a pollster said Monday.

According to the survey conducted by Realmeter on 2,018 adults, Park’s approval rating stood at 34.6 percent, a 0.2 percentage point increase from a week earlier. Her disapproval rating was 58.8 percent, 1.3 percentage point up from last week.

Realmeter attributed the outcome to a surprise defection of a high-profile North Korea diplomat overshadowing the issue.

The survey was conducted between Tuesday and Friday. Park reshuffled her Cabinet during this period, but retained Woo Byung-woo, her senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, despite him facing several corruption allegations.

The decision brought her approval rating down to 33.4 percent Wednesday, but the number bounced back a day after, upon reports of London-based diplomat Thae Yong-ho defecting to South Korea with his family, the pollster said.

The poll was taken too early to reflect the public response to the controversy over an alleged information leak by a special inspector who was looking into allegations, the pollster added.

On Friday, Cheong Wa Dae denounced inspector Lee Seok-su for allegedly leaking information about a probe on Woo to an unidentified group of reporters.

The survey also found that the ruling Saenuri Party’s approval rating stood at 33.3 percent, 0.3 percentage point down from a week earlier. The main opposition The Minjoo Party of Korea’s approval rating managed to narrow the gap with its rival by rising 1.5 percentage points to reach 28.3 percent.

The third-biggest People’s Party, on the other hand, dropped 0.2 percentage points to 12.3 percent, a fall that has continued over the past six weeks. Even in their political strongholds of Gwangju and South Jeolla Province, the centrist party saw its approval rating lagging behind The Minjoo Party seven weeks in a row.

Meanwhile, the survey also found that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was picked as the most favored presidential hopeful for next year’s election, maintaining his lead over the former main opposition party leader Moon Jae-in for the past three weeks.

According to the poll, Ban held an approval rating of 24.8 percent, 1 percentage point up from a week earlier, outpacing Moon and other potential candidates. Moon’s approval rating took second place with 19.2 percent and the People Party’s former leader Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo ranked third with 9.8 percent.

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)