President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a senior secretaries’ meeting at the presidential office in Yongsan-gu, central Seoul, on Oct. 23. (Yonhap)
President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a senior secretaries’ meeting at the presidential office in Yongsan-gu, central Seoul, on Oct. 23. (Yonhap)

President Lee Jae Myung’s approval rating fell for a second consecutive week to 51.2 percent, according to a survey released Monday.

The latest survey, conducted by local pollster Realmeter, found that 51.2 percent of respondents positively assessed Lee’s performance in state affairs, down 1 percentage point from the previous week. The survey was conducted nationwide among 2,519 adults aged 18 and older from Oct. 20-24.

Negative assessments stood at 44.9 percent, unchanged from last week, the poll showed.

The pollster said the decline reflected “public distrust driven by alleged speculative property investments by senior officials and controversial remarks from ruling party figures,” which “raised doubts about the effectiveness of the government’s tightened real estate rules.”

On Oct. 15, the government announced its third round of real estate measures, designating all districts of Seoul and 12 areas in Gyeonggi Province as “overheated speculation zones.” It also tightened lending rules, cutting the mortgage loan cap to as low as 200 million won ($139,500) from 600 million won set in June.

Specifically, the newly introduced measure reduced the ceiling for mortgages by 66 percent — from 600 million won to 400 million won — on homes priced between 1.5 billion and 2.5 billion won, while introducing a separate cap of 200 million won for properties valued above 2.5 billion won.

“Still, strong performances in the economy and diplomacy, including the Kospi index surpassing 3,900, coordination for a Korea-US-China summit and Lee’s town hall meeting in Daegu, helped limit the overall decline,” Realmeter added.

Similar trends were observed in party support.

In a separate Realmeter survey on party support conducted Oct. 23-24 with 1,001 respondents, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea recorded 44.1 percent, down 2.4 percentage points from the previous week. The main opposition People Power Party gained 0.6 percentage point to 37.3 percent.

The gap between the two narrowed to 6.8 percentage points from 9.8 percentage points a week earlier.

Support for minor parties stood at 3.5 percent for the minor conservative Reform Party, 3.3 percent for the minor progressive Rebuilding Korea Party and 1.5 percent for the Progressive Party.

The presidential approval poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points, while the party support poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, both at a 95 percent confidence level, the pollster said.

More details are available on the National Election Commission’s website at www.nec.go.kr


flylikekite@heraldcorp.com