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By Jung Da-min
The approval rating for the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has continued on a downward spiral as a result of botched real estate policies and the autocratic passage of controversial bills, further narrowing the gap with the main opposition Untied Future Party (UFP) to below 1 percentage point, a survey showed, Thursday.
In the poll of 1,510 adults conducted by Realmeter from Monday to Wednesday, 35.6 percent said they support the DPK, while 34.8 percent expressed support for the UFP. The approval rating of the DPK fell 2.7 percentage points from the previous week, while that of the UFP rose 3.1 percentage points.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points with a 95 percent confidence level, which means the gap between approval ratings for the parties was only a third of the margin of error.
The gap between approval ratings of the parties was the smallest since the UFP was launched in February. The approval rating for the UFP had long remained below 30 percent in previous months before and after the 21st general election in which it garnered 103 seats only to be defeated by the DPK which has secured a supermajority of 176 seats with dominant approval ratings at about 40 percent.
Political watchers attributed the narrowed gap between the approval ratings of the parties at the ruling bloc's unilateral push for the passage of controversial bills on real estate policies despite strong protest by the UFP. Another Realmeter poll of 1,000 adults conducted Tuesday and Wednesday showed that 49.5 percent of the respondents opposed the bills while 43.5 percent claimed they support them.
The revisions to the real estate-related bills would introduce heavier taxation on acquisition and comprehensive real estate and capital gains taxes on owners of multiple homes and speculators.
Meanwhile, the approval rating for President Moon Jae-in fell to 44.5 percent, down 1.9 percentage from the previous week, while 51.6 percent expressed disapproval of Moon's job performance.
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