Lee's approval rating falls to 35.9 pct: poll

SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating fell to 35.9 percent last week likely due to an intense political standoff over legislation and stock market volatility, a pollster said Monday.

Positive assessments of Lee's job performance dropped by 1 percentage point from the previous week in the poll conducted on 2,528 adults from last Monday to Friday, according to Realmeter.

Negative assessments rose by 0.5 percentage point to 60.6 percent, while 3.4 percent of respondents said they were not sure.

Realmeter attributed the lower approval rating to last week's standoff between the ruling and main opposition parties over a bill calling for a special counsel investigation into alleged fabricated indictments targeting the president and others.

The bill passed the National Assembly on Friday, led by the ruling Democratic Party (DP).

The pollster also attributed the decline to last week's sharp fall in the KOSPI stock market index to below 5,000 points and other volatility in the financial sector.

Meanwhile, support for the two largest parties came to 36.5 percent for the DP and 39.7 percent for the main opposition People Power Party, after falling by 1.8 percentage points and 0.5 percentage point from the previous poll, respectively.

The poll was conducted on 1,006 adults on Thursday and Friday.

Both surveys were commissioned by the Asia Business Daily and had a margin of error of 1.9 points and 3.1 points, respectively, at a 95 percent confidence level.