Posted on : Dec.16,2018 16:58 KST
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks during a regular briefing of by the Education Ministry at the Government Complex in Sejong City on Dec. 11
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South Korea President Moon Jae-in recently received a 45% support rating for his governance – the lowest level since he took office. According to opinion poll findings released on Dec. 14 by Gallup Korea, positive ratings of Moon were down by four percentage points from last week. Negative ratings were up three percentage points to 44%. The divide between positive and negative assessments came down to just a single percentage point. The ruling Democratic Party received a 36% support rating, also its lowest since the administration took office.
The lowest support ratings in the nineteen months since it came to power could be seen as a clear warning from the public to the Moon administration. True, there is no need to hang on to every single shift in support ratings. But the recent trend is indicative of a serious current under way with the South Korean public.
The reason Moon’s supporting ratings keep sliding seems to have most to do with his policies failing to yield substantive results. The administration named increasing jobs and reducing disparities as its top tasks, but its 2018 performance on that score has been poor. Indicators signal that things have worsened rather than improved.
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Ratings for presidential governance - past 20 weeks
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The conflict between the two men regarded as the chief economic heavyweights – former Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy Kim Dong-yeon and Blue House Chief Policy Advisor Jung Ha-sung – was left to fester for nearly a year. This was a mistake. Positive results were never going to emerge from this lack of compatibility among policies – some of them outright unrealistic – in a situation where the policy actors themselves were being undermined.
On Dec. 14, President Moon expanded his staff with the replacement of 16 figures at the vice minister level in an apparent effort to promote policy results for the administration. It wouldn’t be going too far to say the administration’s very fate hinges on producing policy results. Special measures will need to be identified in terms of staff and policy alike.
As the administration nears its halfway mark, Moon will also need to consider how well he has actually been communicating with the public. An example of this came during his recent overseas tour, where Moon’s actions with the press on board the presidential aircraft gave the sense that he was putting restrictions on questions for reporters – yet his remarks about “rowing when the water comes in” seemed to reflect a lack of proper understanding of the industry situation.
Many South Koreans may have been moved by the manifest sincerity he showed at different events early on in his administration, but he now stands at a moment when he needs to earn the public’s trust through successful policy measures. When things are difficult, that is exactly the time when you need to go to the public with a detailed explanation; sometimes you also need to figure out how to share the issues your administration is facing in a frank and unaffected way. The Blue House’s moves to remove the word “special” from department titles in response to the special inspection team incident and to develop plans for diversifying dispatch ministries appear to be little more than stopgap measures.
The correct response from the Blue House to the several incidents involving lax discipline that have emerged recently should be to explain things more clearly and adopt a humble stance with the public.
The ruling Democratic Party, for its part, needs to check and see whether its recent string of election victories hasn’t gone to its collective head. Party leader Lee Hae-chan certainly did come off as arrogant to the public when he speculated about the party remaining in power for 20 years. He would be better off tracing the loss of his party’s supporters to his own actions in backing out of his pledge for a mixed-member proportional representation system and the controversy within the ruling party surrounding Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung.
The drop in Moon’s support rating is a stern warning from a public that wants to be heard. We look forward to both the Blue House and ruling party doing some humble self-examination and taking seriously the signs of looming crisis that are now emerging.
Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
