SEOUL, April 16 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating dipped for the second consecutive week on controversy over the nomination of the financial watchdog chief, a weekly poll showed Monday.
According to the Realmeter survey, support for Moon fell 1.3 percentage points over the week to 66.8 percent last week, keeping the downward trend for two weeks.
The result was based on the poll of 2,501 voters conducted from Monday to Friday. It had 2 percentage points in margin of error with a 95-percent confidence level.
The decline came amid rising controversy over the president's naming of a former lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party to the head of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
Kim Ki-shik, newly appointed FSS head, was criticized by the opposition bloc for his overseas business trip paid for by agencies subject to parliamentary inspection while he was the lawmaker in charge of inspecting the agencies.
Kim rebutted the opposition bloc's criticism, saying he offered no favor to the agencies in return for the business travels.
Support for the Democratic Party lost 0.7 percentage points to 50.4 percent, but it kept its top post by wide margin.
It was followed by the main conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party which earned a support rate of 21.9 percent.
Approval rating for the minor conservative Bareun Future Party was unchanged at 5.7 percent, while support scores for the minor progressive Justice Party and the minor centrist Party for Democracy and Peace stood at 4.2 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively.
