President Park Geun-hye’s approval rating has fallen slightly over the spread of the MERS virus that has claimed 11 lives over the past weeks, a poll showed Friday.
Park has delayed a U.S. visit that was scheduled for next week amid public criticism that the government has responded poorly to the outbreak of the virus.
In the poll conducted by polling agency Gallup Korea this week, Park’s approval rating dropped to 33 percent, while 58 percent had negative assessments.
The figure compares with 34 percent a week earlier and 40 percent the week before that, according to the polling agency.
The poll was conducted from June 9-11 through random mobile calls to 1,002 adults. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points with a confidence level of 95 percent.
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon was ranked as the most-favored next political leader for the first time this year with a 17 percent rating.
This is apparently due to his challenge of the Park administration for its alleged slow response to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus spread.
Park led the next-leader poll in late last year, but was overtaken by ruling Saenuri Party leader Kim Moo-sung and main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy leader Moon Jae-in this year.
Kim and Moon followed with the rate of 13 percentage points each. (Yonhap)
