President Park:
Only 41% Support in Late March 2013
Only 41% Support in Late March 2013
I see that the new president, Park Geun-Hye (박근혜), now has a 41% approval rating, three months after winning the election and one month after taking office.
The previous president, Lee Myung-bak, was so wildly unpopular that I don't think I ever heard a single person say they liked him. I recall in my first week or two in Korea, April or May 2009, hearing elementary-school students tell me they "hate" Lee M.B. -- his presidency was a year old at the time. The left-wing administrations previous to Lee were scandal-prone, too.
According to the newspaper, though, Mrs. Park's approval-rating is, by far the lowest of any new president's since military-rule ended in 1993.
As I was reading, I sketched out a table to help myself understand the data presented:
Presidential Approval After One Month in Office [acc. to Korea Herald]
% Approval.................President...............Year
..........71%.................Kim Young-Sam.......1993
..........71%.................Kim Dae-Jung.............1998
..........60%................Roh Moo-Hyun........2003
..........52%................Lee Myung-Bak.........2008
..........41%.................Park Geun-Hye..........2013
From this, one cannot help think that Koreans are getting more and more cynical about their leaders, as time goes on.
Then again, old Syngman Rhee was also wildly unpopular, it is said. He was deposed in 1960 after protests, and died in exile in Hawaii! So maybe Koreans have always been cynical about their leaders except for a period in the 1990s when optimism prevailed following the end of military rule?
The previous president, Lee Myung-bak, was so wildly unpopular that I don't think I ever heard a single person say they liked him. I recall in my first week or two in Korea, April or May 2009, hearing elementary-school students tell me they "hate" Lee M.B. -- his presidency was a year old at the time. The left-wing administrations previous to Lee were scandal-prone, too.
According to the newspaper, though, Mrs. Park's approval-rating is, by far the lowest of any new president's since military-rule ended in 1993.
As I was reading, I sketched out a table to help myself understand the data presented:
Presidential Approval After One Month in Office [acc. to Korea Herald]
% Approval.................President...............Year
..........71%.................Kim Young-Sam.......1993
..........71%.................Kim Dae-Jung.............1998
..........60%................Roh Moo-Hyun........2003
..........52%................Lee Myung-Bak.........2008
..........41%.................Park Geun-Hye..........2013
From this, one cannot help think that Koreans are getting more and more cynical about their leaders, as time goes on.
Then again, old Syngman Rhee was also wildly unpopular, it is said. He was deposed in 1960 after protests, and died in exile in Hawaii! So maybe Koreans have always been cynical about their leaders except for a period in the 1990s when optimism prevailed following the end of military rule?
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