Broadcaster Kim Ou-joon. [Yonhap]
Broadcaster Kim Ou-joon. [Yonhap]

Broadcaster Kim Ou-joon warned Monday that President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating could drop into the 20s within a month, as the figure fell for an eighth consecutive week.

Kim made the remarks on his radio program "Kim Ou-joon's Humility Is Hard News Factory," where he analyzed the latest polling results with Realimeter CEO Lee Taek-su.

"What matters is that the downward trend has already continued for more than two months," Kim said.

Lee Taek-su said several positive developments last week — including the integration of KTX and SRT operations, record-high exports in August and the second-highest current account surplus on record in July — were offset by a string of negative factors. Those included controversies surrounding cabinet nominees for the second-term reshuffle, backlash over a reversal on real estate tax reform, and remarks from within progressive circles regarding the president's legal situation, he said.

Kim said positive news was failing to reach the president's supporters. "Even when people see good news, they react with indifference — so positive news isn't working as a positive factor, and only negative news is having an effect," he said.

"The ratings keep falling," Kim said, adding that the administration appeared to be losing momentum across the board.

Kim said the president had reached a point where he had no choice but to speak directly to the public in his own words. "This is not a situation that can be resolved through Cheong Wa Dae spokespeople or the president's social media," he said.

However, Lee Taek-su noted that the pace of decline had shown some signs of slowing in Realimeter's latest survey.

"The rating has fallen for eight consecutive weeks," he said, "but fortunately there was a slight rebound, so the drop was not large."

The latest poll, released Monday, showed President Lee's approval rating fell 1.5 percentage points from the previous week to 37.4 percent — a new low. The disapproval rating stood at 59.5 percent, with 3.1 percent responding "don't know." The survey was conducted by Realimeter on behalf of the Energy Economy Newspaper from Aug. 31 to Friday among 2,510 eligible voters aged 18 and older nationwide.

The survey used an automated response method via randomly generated call sampling on mobile phones only, with a response rate of 4.2 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.0 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. Further details are available on the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.


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