Why Is South Korea’s President Yoon So Unpopular?

Yoon Suk-yeol, the conservative president of South Korea, won the presidential election on March 9, 2022, by defeating his opponent Lee Jae-myung by just 0.7 percentage point. It was the narrowest margin of victory in South Korea since the country adopted a direct election system in 1987, ending decades of military rule.

When Yoon took office in May 2022, his approval rating was hovering around 53 percent; most presidents in South Korea are supported by the public in their first year in office. However, Yoon’s popularity has dropped significantly in the past two years. In the last week of June 2022, his approval rating fell below his disapproval rating for the first time, and has never recovered.

Although his party won the local elections held three months after the 2022 presidential election, his unpopularity was recently demonstrated in the general elections held in April as the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) won a landslide victory again. It was a crucial moment as the party was led by Lee Jae-myung, Yoon’s rival in the 2022 election, who will likely run for president again in March 2027. In the wake of this victory, Lee ran again for the party’s leadership election in August and secured his seat successfully.

According to the latest poll by Gallup Korea, Yoon’s approval rating was at 23 percent after the first week of September, indicating that the majority of South Koreans are dissatisfied with his statesmanship. And that represented a modest improvement: in late May, Yoon registered his lowest-ever rating with just 21 percent support. In Gallup’s weekly poll, Yoon has not seen his approval rating break 30 percent since March 2024.