According to a polling agency which has tracked Lee's approval rating for the presidential office, his rating stood at 31.1 percent on July 26, rising to 36.1 percent on Aug. 16 and climbing further to 45.5 percent on Sunday, the day of former President Kim Dae-jung's state funeral. Another polling agency in a survey conducted last Saturday at the request of Cheong Wa Dae also found that Lee's approval rating recorded 46.7 percent. Both agencies surveyed 1,000 adults across the country, with a confidence level of 95 percent and a marginal error of 3.1 percent.
Polling agency officials said that so far no survey other than those commissioned by Cheong Wa Dae has ever showed the president's approval rating in the mid-40-percent level, but they added that it is true that the rating is going up.
In a joint survey conducted by the East Asia Institute and Hankook Research on Saturday, Lee's approval rating stood at 37.3 percent, compared to 30.5 percent a month earlier. In a survey by Research & Research on Aug. 6, his approval rating rose to 40.5 percent from 36.4 percent a month earlier.
"Lee's approval rating rose to the 30-percent level early this year because of the combined efforts of conservative Koreans who had grown worried about the drastic decline in support for the president," said Kim Hyung-joon, a politics professor at Myongji University. "But the latest rise in his approval rating is different in that the president deserves the credit. It reflects the positive impact of his continued efforts to maintain a centrist policy and implement practical measures to support low-income families."
Improvements in economic indicators and a jump-start in stalled inter-Korean relations following former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun's visits to North Korea have also helped, Kim added.