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President Park’s approval rating sinks amid bribery scandal

April 17, 2015
South Korea's President Park Geun-hye looks observes a minute of silence during a state funeral of the late Lee Kuan Yew, held at the University Cultural Center, Sunday, March 29, 2015, in Singapore. During a week of national mourning that began Monday after Lee's death at age 91, some 450,000 people queued for hours for a glimpse of Lee's coffin at Parliament House. A million people visited tribute sites at community centers across the island and leaders and dignitaries from more than two dozen countries attended the state funeral. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye looks observes a minute of silence during a state funeral of the late Lee Kuan Yew, held at the University Cultural Center, Sunday, March 29, 2015, in Singapore. During a week of national mourning that began Monday after Lee’s death at age 91, some 450,000 people queued for hours for a glimpse of Lee’s coffin at Parliament House. A million people visited tribute sites at community centers across the island and leaders and dignitaries from more than two dozen countries attended the state funeral. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — President Park Geun-hye’s approval rating has dropped this week from a week earlier amid a bribery scandal involving some of her key aides, a poll showed Friday.

The poll conducted this week by research agency Gallup Korea put her approval rating at 34 percent, down 5 percentage points from the previous week.

Regarding Park’s job performance, 54 percent of the respondents gave a negative assessment while 12 percent gave no response.

Only 51 percent of the respondents from the southern regions of Daegu and North Gyeongsang, the backbone of Park’s public support, had a positive assessment of the administration, down from 65 percent last week.

Personnel issues were cited by most respondents as a reason for their unfavorable assessment, while others referred to the recent bribery scandal and a leadership problem.

The result came as the Park government and the ruling Saenuri Party have become embroiled in the scandal that erupted last week following the suicide of a businessman.

Before his suicide, Sung Wan-jong, a former head of a mid-size construction firm, claimed he gave money to eight heavyweight politicians, including former and incumbent presidential chiefs of staff, and Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo.

“More respondents took issue with personnel and leadership problems in assessing the president’s job performance as several ruling party bigwigs were mentioned in the broadening Sung Wan-jong list scandal,” an official of the research firm said.

The survey was conducted on 1,008 adults for three days starting Tuesday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.