[fn Plaza] Approval ratings plunge, raising hopes for a 'red team'

President Lee Jae-myung's approval rating trend is looking increasingly troubling. For the first time since he took office, the trends in positive and negative evaluations have reversed. This is a common pattern seen in polls by Gallup Korea Research Institute and other polling firms. It is a 'dead cross,' where the positive trend breaks through the negative trend from above and falls below it. Gallup Korea Research Institute put Lee's approval rating for the second week of August at 44%. The negative rating stood at 46%. What deserves even closer attention is the size of the drop. According to Gallup, his approval rating was 64% in the third week of May. In a little over three months, it fell by 20 percentage points.
Presidential approval ratings are usually high during the early 'honeymoon period' after inauguration. They reflect public expectations for a new president, and then begin a downward trend. The same has been true for past presidents. Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in maintained high approval ratings for a considerable time after taking office. Their first dead cross came more than a year later. By contrast, Roh Moo-hyun, Lee Myung-bak and Yoon Suk-yeol struggled from the start of their terms. It is unusual that President Lee has maintained approval ratings above 60% for nearly a year after taking office. Analysts say the public's desire for stability after martial law and impeachment, along with a strong stock market and his active policy agenda, helped boost his favorability.
Even so, attention is now focused on the steep decline and on a rating trajectory that differs from those of previous presidents. In general, presidential approval ratings begin to fall gradually from the second year in office as they become tied to specific events. By the end of a term, they hit bottom. For Kim Dae-jung, the wardrobe scandal and corruption involving family members and close aides triggered the decline. For Moon Jae-in, the Cho Kuk scandal and soaring real estate prices were the turning points. Lee has not faced a comparable single event. Instead, public discontent is being driven by a range of issues, including the stock market, housing, youth problems and criminal justice reform. This is not the result of one major shock. Rather, several medium-sized problems have hit at once.
On top of that, a crisis of trust and growing confusion have been added to the mix. Lee has signaled that some form of supplementary investigative authority for prosecutors may be necessary as part of criminal justice reform. But he did not exercise his veto power over the revision to the Criminal Procedure Act of the Republic of Korea, which centers on abolishing that authority. The government's recent tax reform plan was also completely at odds with his earlier message that he would not use taxes to cool the housing market. Public sentiment has little choice but to become confused.
Approval ratings are the driving force behind state affairs. They are the president's political leverage. When ratings fall, the impact of policy weakens. Government control also erodes. That is why the administration has no choice but to do everything it can to reverse the decline and restore momentum.
When the situation is urgent, the answer is not to rush. The temptation to change the mood with event-driven measures such as a constitutional amendment for a presidential re-election or single-term re-election system, or with a cabinet reshuffle, should be resisted. Such moves cannot serve as a real remedy for public sentiment. They could even make things worse. The Moon Jae-in administration is a case in point. Its approval rating rose to around 70% on the back of COVID-19 containment and a general election victory, but once the real estate issue came to the fore, it plunged into the 30% range.
Easy painkillers only make the illness worse. The fundamentals matter. The causes of the approval rating decline must be addressed directly. Real estate policy should place greater weight on measures that people can actually feel, such as expanding supply and stabilizing the rental market. Youth employment and housing problems must be elevated to top national priorities. There is a reason public sentiment has turned away. The government has no choice but to find solutions to each issue and persuade the public.
Although the situation has deteriorated this much, systematic efforts to fix policy blind spots appear to have been lacking. The so-called 'red team' was nowhere to be seen. After the launch of a 'Samsung Electronics and SK hynix leverage shares exchange-traded fund (ETF)' product led to a string of side effects, a senior official's regret that it should have been stopped 'even if we had to lie down in front of it' reflects the one-sided atmosphere within the current administration, which does not tolerate disagreement, criticism or constructive alternatives. For a market that runs on trust, this is the worst possible policy environment. Policy decisions made through a one-way structure are bound to face a backlash from the market.
In that sense, I place my hopes on the Democratic Party of Korea's new leadership, which was launched after its recent national convention. As a red team that can ring the bell on the cat's neck, there is no better fit than the ruling party itself. A clue was already visible during the TV debate in the party leadership race. At the time, candidate Song Young-gil said, "We need to overcome the binary thinking that real estate is speculation and stocks are investment." Kim Min-seok, who was elected the new party leader, said, "We need to reduce the president's schedule and make time to breathe the air of ordinary citizens."
If the administration repeats a 'league of their own' without critical voices, the chances of success for the Lee Jae-myung administration will only shrink. Rather than falling for the temptation of a quick political reset, it should look back on policy failures. If it cannot restore the president's approval rating, everything is at risk anyway, so what is the point of the pro-Lee faction taking control of the party? Public sentiment is not foolish.
[email protected] Reporter