Eight out of 10 experts disapprove of President Park Geun-hye’s running of state affairs over the past two years, a poll showed Tuesday.
According to the survey of 300 professors and researchers of economics and social affairs, 223 respondents said Park “has been poor” in handling the administration since taking office in 2013.
Some 78 percent also saw Park’s leadership as “undemocratic,” and 82 percent said her policy measures “went nowhere,” showed the poll conducted via e-mail by the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice for about two weeks earlier this month.
The respondents cited her lack of fairness by pushing for a pro-rich policy and her failure in personnel affairs as reasons for their distrust, according to the poll.
Park has been struggling to win back confidence from the people, particularly in recent weeks amid public backlash over the government’s revised tax settlement scheme and controversy over her pick for prime minister, Lee Wan-koo.
Her approval ratings had fallen to an all-time low of below 30 percent before rebounding to 34 percent this week.
Asked about who should be sacked among her aides for administrative reform, 264 experts pointed to her chief of staff Kim Ki-choon, and 150 experts cited Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan.
“Heeding lessons from experiences over the past two years, the Park government should seek unity and coexistence to run state affairs successfully,” the civic group said in a release.
Park’s five-year term ends in February 2018 and she is barred by the Constitution from seeking reelection. (Yonhap)
