President Lee Jae Myung's Approval Rating Falls Below 50 Percent

SEOUL, Aug. 13 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating fell to the lowest level since his inauguration, a poll showed Thursday.

In a National Barometer Survey conducted from Monday to Wednesday, Lee's approval rating stood at 49 percent, down 4 percentage points from the previous poll conducted two weeks earlier.

It marks the first time his approval rating fell below 50 percent in the biweekly survey.

Disapproval of his performance rose 6 percentage points to 43 percent.

On the government's real estate policies, 56 percent of respondents said the current administration was doing a poor job, while 34 percent gave positive assessments.

The poll also showed that 46 percent supported the government's recently unveiled property tax revision plan, compared with 41 percent who opposed it.

When asked about its impact, 55 percent expected the revision to drive up "jeonse" and monthly rental prices, while 27 percent expected little change and 8 percent predicted a decline. Jeonse is a unique South Korean housing rental system in which tenants make a large lump-sum deposit that is fully returned at the end of the lease.

In the same poll, support for the ruling Democratic Party (DP) remained unchanged from the previous survey at 40 percent, while that of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) rose 2 percentage points to 23 percent.

The DP had higher support than the PPP across all age groups except those in their 20s and younger, and in all regions except the southeastern city of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province.