By Park Moo-jong
When it comes to opinion polls in this part of the planet, a majority of people would come up with some rather unfavorable views of pollsters, particularly the uses to which their work is put.
What is noteworthy is the fact that many potential respondents, including me, are used to simply slamming down their phones. Why? They do not trust the pollsters because their way of questioning lacks objectivity and credibility, the basics in conducting a poll.
To date, most opinion polls conducted ahead of various elections, including the last April 15 parliamentary election, gave "wrong" predictions about the results, thus losing public trust.
One of the most popular words used by youngsters these days is certainly "really?" The Korean term for "really?" is "jinjja?" or "jeongmal?" Of course, this could be a matter of the linguistic habits of the growing generation of today.
Many young people even use the term "Real" from the Spanish football club "Real Madrid," though the Spanish Real means royal. Yet, the linguistic habit also illustrates the gloomy tendency of distrust in our society.
In fact, many people doubt the results of various opinion polls, especially about the approval ratings of political parties, asking, "Really?"
However, politicians and their political parties become very agitated ― now being optimistic, now being pessimistic ― about the outcome of the polls, conducted almost every week, mostly by Gallup Korea and Realmeter, and commissioned by various media outlets.
Against this backdrop, an apparently "believable" public survey result shocked President Moon Jae-in and his loyal supporters last week.
The latest survey by Realmeter, widely known to be a pro-Moon Jae-in pollster, showed Monday that the President's job approval rating dropped to a record low 37.4 percent, a 6.4 percentage points drop from the previous week.
The poll also said that the approval rating for Moon's ruling Democratic Party of Korea was 29.7 percent, down by 4.4 percentage points from the previous week, compared to the main opposition People Power Party's 31.3 percent.
A Gallup Korea poll also put his approval rating at 39 percent, the lowest recorded by that organization since he entered office in May, 2017.
At the bottom of all survey results is an announcement that "the telephone survey has a confidence level of 95 percent and the margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points." (Believe it or not).
It appears that Moon is losing his supporters, commonly thought to account for at least more than 40 percent of voters, despite his "unswerving" policy goal for "reform" of the nation, backed by his ruling party's absolute majority power on the floor.
The pollsters analyzed that respondents cited Moon's failure to rein in sky-rocketing housing prices, despite dozens of mortgage curbs and other measures, and his tenacious goal of ousting Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl under the slogan of "prosecutorial reform."
The latest COVID-19 surge following the Moon administration's ineffective and belated response is adding fuel to him being marked down amid public criticism that he has been keeping silent about numerous controversies.
Finally, he came out from behind the curtain and changed some of his Cabinet members, including Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee, who prompted a public uproar by comparing building apartments to baking bread.
But he disappointed the majority of people by retaining Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae, who is taking the van in Moon's crusade of purging top prosecutor Yoon, once his political darling, who appears to be determined to investigate alleged corruption scandals involving those now in power, including himself.
The presidential office did comment on Moon's dropping approval rating. His spokesman said, "We need neither be glad nor sad as the approval rating will rise but also must fall. But we think that we have to turn over a new leaf to cope with the new challenges....."
However, the truth is that they have not yet turned over a new leaf. Common sense dictates that Moon will have no chance at all to regain support without a "real" reform of policies that have proven to be wrong.
Upon taking office three-and-a-half years ago, Moon promised to "build a nation the people have never experienced." And yes, he is living up to his pledge.
But he has to change his words before it is too late with one-and-a-half years to go. People, except for his loyal supporters, do not want to live in such a country.
The opinion polls, which the public had somewhat lost confidence in, now appear to be speaking for what the people think of the current situation.
Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.
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What is noteworthy is the fact that many potential respondents, including me, are used to simply slamming down their phones. Why? They do not trust the pollsters because their way of questioning lacks objectivity and credibility, the basics in conducting a poll.
To date, most opinion polls conducted ahead of various elections, including the last April 15 parliamentary election, gave "wrong" predictions about the results, thus losing public trust.
One of the most popular words used by youngsters these days is certainly "really?" The Korean term for "really?" is "jinjja?" or "jeongmal?" Of course, this could be a matter of the linguistic habits of the growing generation of today.
Many young people even use the term "Real" from the Spanish football club "Real Madrid," though the Spanish Real means royal. Yet, the linguistic habit also illustrates the gloomy tendency of distrust in our society.
In fact, many people doubt the results of various opinion polls, especially about the approval ratings of political parties, asking, "Really?"
However, politicians and their political parties become very agitated ― now being optimistic, now being pessimistic ― about the outcome of the polls, conducted almost every week, mostly by Gallup Korea and Realmeter, and commissioned by various media outlets.
Against this backdrop, an apparently "believable" public survey result shocked President Moon Jae-in and his loyal supporters last week.
The latest survey by Realmeter, widely known to be a pro-Moon Jae-in pollster, showed Monday that the President's job approval rating dropped to a record low 37.4 percent, a 6.4 percentage points drop from the previous week.
The poll also said that the approval rating for Moon's ruling Democratic Party of Korea was 29.7 percent, down by 4.4 percentage points from the previous week, compared to the main opposition People Power Party's 31.3 percent.
A Gallup Korea poll also put his approval rating at 39 percent, the lowest recorded by that organization since he entered office in May, 2017.
At the bottom of all survey results is an announcement that "the telephone survey has a confidence level of 95 percent and the margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points." (Believe it or not).
It appears that Moon is losing his supporters, commonly thought to account for at least more than 40 percent of voters, despite his "unswerving" policy goal for "reform" of the nation, backed by his ruling party's absolute majority power on the floor.
The pollsters analyzed that respondents cited Moon's failure to rein in sky-rocketing housing prices, despite dozens of mortgage curbs and other measures, and his tenacious goal of ousting Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl under the slogan of "prosecutorial reform."
The latest COVID-19 surge following the Moon administration's ineffective and belated response is adding fuel to him being marked down amid public criticism that he has been keeping silent about numerous controversies.
Finally, he came out from behind the curtain and changed some of his Cabinet members, including Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee, who prompted a public uproar by comparing building apartments to baking bread.
But he disappointed the majority of people by retaining Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae, who is taking the van in Moon's crusade of purging top prosecutor Yoon, once his political darling, who appears to be determined to investigate alleged corruption scandals involving those now in power, including himself.
The presidential office did comment on Moon's dropping approval rating. His spokesman said, "We need neither be glad nor sad as the approval rating will rise but also must fall. But we think that we have to turn over a new leaf to cope with the new challenges....."
However, the truth is that they have not yet turned over a new leaf. Common sense dictates that Moon will have no chance at all to regain support without a "real" reform of policies that have proven to be wrong.
Upon taking office three-and-a-half years ago, Moon promised to "build a nation the people have never experienced." And yes, he is living up to his pledge.
But he has to change his words before it is too late with one-and-a-half years to go. People, except for his loyal supporters, do not want to live in such a country.
The opinion polls, which the public had somewhat lost confidence in, now appear to be speaking for what the people think of the current situation.
Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.
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