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| 2026-05-15 11:25:44
Lee-approval rating
Lee's approval rating dips amid controversy over special probe bill on 'fabricated' charges
SEOUL, May 15 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating slipped to 61 percent this week, a poll showed Friday, amid controversy over a ruling party-proposed special counsel bill that could potentially allow the withdrawal of indictments linked to him.
The survey, conducted by Gallup Korea from Tuesday through Thursday on 1,011 people aged 18 and older, showed that the positive assessment of Lee's overall performance fell 3 percentage points from the previous poll conducted two weeks earlier.
After hitting a high of 67 percent in the fourth week of April, Lee's approval rating fell in two consecutive Gallup polls to 61 percent this week.
The negative assessment rose 2 percentage points to 28 percent, while 11 percent were undecided.
Lee's handling of the economy and people's livelihoods was cited most frequently as the reason for a positive evaluation at 26 percent, followed by diplomacy at 10 percent and overall performance at 7 percent.
"The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), which has surged sharply in recent months, came close to the 8,000 mark this week, while South Korea's market capitalization rose to become the world's sixth largest," the pollster said.
Among those who rated his performance negatively, "excessive welfare and subsidies" and "moral issues and attempting to avoid his own trials" were the most commonly cited reasons, both at 10 percent.
Gallup attributed part of the decline in Lee's approval rating to the controversy over the ruling Democratic Party's push for the special counsel bill that would grant an independent counsel the authority to seek the withdrawal of indictments tied to allegedly fabricated investigations and prosecutions under the previous Yoon Suk Yeol administration.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.
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