President Moon's Approval Rating Is in Free Fall

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has fallen on hard times. The state leader once touted as a hopeful in renewing the country has lost almost half of his initial approval rating since the start of his presidency in 2017, according to Gallup. Now, a public petition calling for Moon’s impeachment has garnered more than 200,000 signatures, triggering a mandatory reply from the government.

The fall from grace might also be this abrupt because the politician who won the presidency back for Social Democrats from the Conservatives started out with an astonishingly high approval rating of more than 80 percent two years ago. The human rights lawyer and former activist was seen favorably after the corruption scandal that toppled Conservative former president Park Geun-hye.

But economic problems, high unemployment and the failed summit between North Korea and the U.S. in February, for which South Korea had acted as a bridge-maker, put a dent in Moon’s popularity. In the most recent poll, 50 percent of respondents criticized Moon’s economic policy while 13 percent took issue with his friendly stance on North-Korea, according to Reuters.