The President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, is not popular. She has surpassed 60% disapproval. Only 34.5% (+/- 2%) in a poll last week said they approve of her.
I first wrote about this in post #10 ("Unpopular Leaders"). At the time, April 2013, I wrote the following (with [bracketed] explanations added), information I'd gotten from the newspaper:
I first wrote about this in post #10 ("Unpopular Leaders"). At the time, April 2013, I wrote the following (with [bracketed] explanations added), information I'd gotten from the newspaper:
Presidential Approval After One Month in Office [according to the Korea Herald]
% Approval.................President...............Year
..........71%.................Kim Young-Sam.......1993 [centrist; first non-military president since 1961]
..........71%.................Kim Dae-Jung.............1998 [left-wing; began Sunshine Policy with NK]
..........60%................Roh Moo-Hyun........2003 [left-wing; elected during anti-U.S. hysteria of 2002]
..........52%................Lee Myung-Bak.........2008 [right-wing freemarket type]
..........41%.................Park Geun-Hye..........2013 [right-wing, daughter of 1960s-1970s strongman General Park]
[O]ne cannot help think that Koreans are getting more and more cynical about their leaders, as time goes on.
Park Geun-Hye's popularity today (34.5%) has not much changed from its level of two years ago (41%). But people are more deeply annoyed now:
40.3% of respondents “highly disapproved” of the president [...] the first time the figure has exceeded 40%.
Koreans are prone to political overreactions (as I see it). Several former presidents and their staffs from 1980s through the present have faced legal prosecution after leaving office, and many actually did prison time (including two presidents), for alleged crimes they allegedly presided over. In other words, when the right-wing has gotten in power, they start an elaborate process of political trials against the former left-wing leaders who preceded them (and vice versa); heavy fines and jail terms are liberally handed out. I find this to be highly undignified, the worst kind of naked political prosecutions of political enemies when one has a temporary political advantage. This is a bad sort of political overreaction.
Another form of political overreaction, as I see it, may be to "disapprove" of a head of government for no particular reason. That's what politics in a liberal democracy seems to be about, they may perceive.
They may have gotten this idea ("disapproval for no reason") from the USA. Who is the last U.S. president who maintained consistent, comfortable-majority approval? Eisenhower? Majority-disapproval of a U.S. president has become all but expected in the USA.
President Park's predecessor, Lee Myung-Bak (2008-2012), too, had dismal approval ratings for most of his presidency, often below 30% approval. Among other issues, the left (and the racialist center) accused Lee of cozying up to the Yankees [See #263 and #264]; he reallowed U.S. beef imports (banned in 2003), a major domestic political issue, and he negotiated a U.S.-Korea free trade agreement, and majorly toned down the anti-USFK rhetoric -- By my first arrival in 2009, two years after Lee took office, the once-common "No Americans Allowed" on businesses were almost all gone.
So presidential disapproval will continue until...when? Will it be like this forever from now on?
Update:
Another form of political overreaction, as I see it, may be to "disapprove" of a head of government for no particular reason. That's what politics in a liberal democracy seems to be about, they may perceive.
They may have gotten this idea ("disapproval for no reason") from the USA. Who is the last U.S. president who maintained consistent, comfortable-majority approval? Eisenhower? Majority-disapproval of a U.S. president has become all but expected in the USA.
President Park's predecessor, Lee Myung-Bak (2008-2012), too, had dismal approval ratings for most of his presidency, often below 30% approval. Among other issues, the left (and the racialist center) accused Lee of cozying up to the Yankees [See #263 and #264]; he reallowed U.S. beef imports (banned in 2003), a major domestic political issue, and he negotiated a U.S.-Korea free trade agreement, and majorly toned down the anti-USFK rhetoric -- By my first arrival in 2009, two years after Lee took office, the once-common "No Americans Allowed" on businesses were almost all gone.
So presidential disapproval will continue until...when? Will it be like this forever from now on?
Update:
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