DMZ meeting lifts Moon's approval rating

US President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and President Moon Jae-in, right, at the border village of Panmunjeom in the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone, Sunday. AP-Yonhap

By Kim Yoo-chul

Support for President Moon Jae-in rose to an eight-month high, powered by Sunday's historic encounter between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the heavily fortified border separating the two Koreas, a local pollster said, Thursday.

Seoul-based polling agency Realmeter released the results of a survey showing 52.4 percent of South Koreans approved President Moon's performance in handling state affairs, up 4.5 percentage points from the previous week. This was also a new eight-month high. The previous high was 53.7 percent in the second week of November last year.

Political experts and the pollster said the last-minute talks between Trump and Kim at the inter-Korean border made South Koreans feel "positive" about the "mini-summit." The weekly survey was conducted from Monday to Wednesday.

Realmeter said 1,506 were polled out of 29,867 the pollster contacted via telephone, randomly. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points with a 95 percent confidence level.

At the same time, 42.5 percent of those surveyed felt negative about President Moon. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) won a 42.1 percent support rate during the same period, while that of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) stood at 28.2 percent, the lowest in four months, Realmeter said.

A majority of respondents dissatisfied of Moon's performance in the survey cited his "controversial economic policies" as their primary source of concern. South Korea trimmed its growth forecast for this year below 3 percent citing global trade tensions and weak investment in facilities from leading conglomerates.

President Moon has been seeking improved ties with North Korea since he took power in 2017. But his enthusiastic "engagement-centric" inter-Korean diplomacy with Kim Jong-un is receiving criticism from the country's conservatives.

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