Moon and Democrats rise in polls post North-South summit.


Ri Sol Ju, Kim Jeong Un, Moon Jae-in and Kim Jung-sook at Mt. Baekdu in North Korea.  

Moon Jae-in was in Pyongyang last week for his third summit with Kim Jeong Un. Highlights included a trip to Mt Baekdu (pictured above) which is the highest point on the Korean peninsula and important in traditional Korean mythology and in the mythology of the ruling Kim family in North Korea. Moon also gave a speech at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang.

Moons approval rating has been falling quite sharply ever since the last summit which was followed by a stunning victory for the Democrats (Moon’s party) in the local elections in June. From a high of 79% in the first week of June Moon fell to 49% in the first week of September. He’s enjoyed a post summit bounce in the Gallup polls taking him up to 61% of people saying he is ‘doing well’ with 30% saying he is ‘doing badly.’ Realmeter show the same trend- Moon has reserved his downward trend and has gone up 9% in one week to an approval rating of 62% and down to a disapproval rating of 32%.  

A good guide to Moon's ratings is how much North Korea is in the news. . The economy is doing ok but not great and his economic reforms split the country fairly equally- therefore his ‘default’ approval rating is middling however his North Korea policy is popular so when North Korea is in the news (the picture above was on the front page of every newspaper in both Koreas) his approval rating goes up.  The Gallup Poll allows people to give their rationale for approving or disapproving with most of those approving giving a reason related to North Korea and most of those disapproving giving a reason related to the economy.

Where Moon Jae-in goes the Democrats follow. In the Gallup poll has Democrats 46% (up 6% from last week), Liberty Korea 13%, Justice 10%,  Righteous Future 4%, Peace and Democracy 1% Don’t know is on 25%.  In the Realmeter poll has Democrats 45% (up 4% from last week), Liberty Korea 19%, Justice 8%, Rigteous Future 6%, Peace and Democracy 3% and don’t know on 18%.


Other stuff
The Gallup poll has 49% of people thinking that North Korea will keep the promises they made in the agreement while 30% think they will break their promises. This is the same as the number who thought North Korea would keep their promises after the 2nd summit (in May) though down from the 58% who thought they would keep their promises from the first summit (in April).
They also have a poll on re-unification which I might cover in another post.

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