Lee's approval rating inches up after 6-week decline: poll
President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a public briefing about the AI government megaproject in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, Friday. Joint Press Corps
President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating edged up for the first time in seven weeks, a poll showed Monday.
In the poll commissioned by the EKN newspaper and conducted by Realmeter, Lee's approval rating rose 0.5 percentage point from the previous week to 47 percent, while disapproval of his performance fell 0.3 percentage point to 49.2 percent.
Realmeter attributed the rebound to the government's announcement of the "three megaprojects" initiative, a 4,755 trillion-won ($3.11 trillion) investment plan centered on semiconductors, physical artificial intelligence (AI) and AI data centers.
The pollster said, however, that the sharp decline in stock prices and the weak Korean won held back the rebound.
The weekly survey, conducted on 2,525 people aged 18 and older from Monday to Friday, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.
In a separate survey conducted by the same pollster, support for the ruling Democratic Party of Korea gained 2 percentage points from a week earlier to 43 percent, while that of the main opposition People Power Party shed 1.7 percentage points to 40.3 percent.
The poll, conducted on 1,008 individuals aged 18 and over Thursday and Friday, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, with a confidence level of 95 percent.