President Lee Jae Myung's Approval Rating Declines for Third Straight Week

SEOUL, July 24 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating edged down to 51 percent this week, a poll showed Friday, marking its third straight weekly decline.

In a survey conducted by Gallup Korea from Tuesday through Thursday on 1,003 people aged 18 and older, 51 percent positively assessed Lee's management of state affairs, down 1 percentage point from a week earlier.

The figure marked the third consecutive weekly decline from 54 percent recorded in the poll released July 3.

Thirty-eight percent of the respondents disapproved of Lee's performance, up 1 percentage point from the previous week.

Diplomacy was cited most frequently as the reason for the positive evaluation at 17 percent, followed by economy and people's livelihoods at 15 percent and overall performance at 9 percent.

Among the main reasons cited by those who viewed Lee unfavorably were real estate policies at 22 percent, followed by economic concerns, including the continued weakness of the local currency, at 10 percent.

Gallup said real estate policies topped the list of reasons for the negative assessment for the first time since his administration took office in June last year.

At a public discussion on real estate policy Thursday, Lee said there was broad consensus on raising property holding taxes to help stabilize runaway housing prices, signaling the possibility of increasing property holding taxes.

In the same survey, the ruling Democratic Party's approval rose 4 percentage points to 44 percent from the previous week, while that of the main opposition People Power Party dropped 3 percentage points to 23 percent.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.