President Yoon's approval rating rebounds to over 30% for first time in four weeks

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s chronically low approval rating has rebounded to over 30 percent for the first time in four weeks, according to the latest public opinion survey released by pollster Realmeter on Monday.

President Yoon Suk Yeol, left, and first lady Kim Keon Hee disemark from the presidential airplane at Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, after completing an official visit to the Czech Republic on Sunday morning. [YONHAP]

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s chronically low approval rating has rebounded to over 30 percent for the first time in four weeks, according to the latest public opinion survey released by pollster Realmeter on Monday.

According to the survey, 30.3 percent of people over the age of 18 said they rated the president’s performance positively.

The president’s approval rating in the same survey just a week prior was 27.0 percent, which marked his lowest since taking office in May 2022.

Likewise, the portion of people who told the pollster that they disapproved of Yoon’s job performance dipped from 68.7 percent the previous week to 66.2 percent.

The survey, conducted from Sept. 19 to 20, had a confidence interval of 95 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

In its analysis, Realmeter said the reasons for the spike in the president’s approval rating likely included “his foreign policy achievements, including the Czech nuclear power plant deal,” as well as the growing risk of criminal prosecution faced by his main rival Lee Jae-myung, leader of the liberal Democratic Party (DP).

The pollster also noted that the Yoon administration’s protracted standoff with junior doctors who walked off their posts in February in protest of the government’s plan to increase annual medical recruitment received relatively less attention over the five-day Chuseok holiday period.

Approval of the president’s performance rose in Seoul, Busan, Ulsan, South Gyeongsang, Daejeon, Sejong and the Chungcheong region but fell in Daegu, North Gyeongsang, Gwangju and the Jeolla region.

Approval of the president’s job performance also rose across all age groups except people in their 50s, according to the survey.

Meanwhile, a separate Realmeter survey conducted during the same period and interviewing the same people found that 35.2 percent supported the conservative People Power Party (PPP), which is aligned with the Yoon administration, while 39.2 percent expressed support for the DP.

Support for the PPP rose by 2.2 percentage points compared to the previous week’s survey results, while support for the DP fell by 0.4 percentage points.

Another 9.1 percent of respondents said they supported the Rebuilding Korea Party, led by former Justice Minister Cho Kuk — an outspoken critic of the Yoon administration — while 4.5 percent said they supported the Reform Party, led by former PPP leader Lee Jun-seok.

A Realmeter representative who spoke to the JoongAng Ilbo on condition of anonymity noted that support for the PPP appeared to have risen“amid the DP’s continued push for special counsel probes into first lady Kim Keon Hee and the military’s handling of Marine Cpl. Chae Su-geun’s death, as well as its passage of various contentious bills.”

BY LEE HAYJUNE, MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]