President Park Geun-hye’s job approval rating edged up slightly due to positive media coverage of her recent summits with the leaders of China and Japan, as well as a meeting meant to cut red tape, a poll showed Monday.
A poll released by polling agency Realmeter showed 46 percent of people approved of the job Park is doing, up 1.5 percentage points from a week earlier.
Those who disapproved of Park’s job performance came to 48.3 percent, down 1.7 percentage points from a week earlier.
Earlier this month, Park hosted the Japanese and Chinese leaders in the first trilateral summit of the three countries in more than three years.
South Korea, China and Japan are close trade partners, but tensions still persist between South Korea and Japan and between China and Japan over territorial and history-related issues.
Park also had a separate meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and they agreed to accelerate negotiations to quickly resolve the issue of former South Korean sex slaves for Japan’s World War II soldiers.
Separately, 20.8 percent supported Kim Moo-sung, head of the ruling Saenuri Party, in a potential presidential race. Moon Jae-in, leader of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, and Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon received 18.2 percent and 13.2 percent of support, respectively.
The survey was conducted on 2,561 adults between Nov. 2-6 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points. (Yonhap)
