SEOUL, April 2 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating rose to the highest this year on a positive assessment over the government's efforts to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak, a weekly poll showed Thursday.
According to the Realmeter survey, support for Moon added 0.3 percentage points over the week to 52.9 percent this week. It was the highest support rate this year.
The negative assessment on Moon's conduct of state affairs slipped 0.1 percentage point to 44.0 percent.
Moon's support score was on the rise in recent weeks amid the growing positive views over the quarantine efforts by the government.
In the latest tally, South Korea reported 89 more cases of the COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, raising the combined infections to 9,976.
Though the total number neared 10,000, the daily caseload steadied and stayed around 100 for the past weeks.
Ahead of the scheduled parliamentary election on April 15, support for Moon's ruling Democratic Party maintained its lead this week.
Support for the Democratic Party dipped 1.6 percentage points to 43.0 percent this week, and the main conservative opposition United Future Party diminished 1.8 percentage points to 28.2 percent.
The minor progressive Justice Party gained 4.9 percent of support, followed by the centrist People's Party with 4.3 percent and the center-left Party for People's Livelihoods with 2.5 percent each.
The results were based on a poll of 1,514 voters conducted from Monday to Wednesday. It had plus and minus 2.5 percentage points in margin of error with a 95-percent confidence level.
