President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating rose to its highest level in more than 16 months, owing to the government’s COVID-19 response, local pollster Realmeter said Thursday. The country’s aggressive tracing and testing early in the pandemic has helped it to avoid drastic lockdowns.

According to the poll, conducted between Monday and Wednesday, Moon’s approval rating stood at 52.5 percent, up 3.2 percentage points from the previous week. It was the highest since the second week of November 2018, when it was at 53.7 percent.

Support for Moon had lagged below the 50 percent mark since August 2019. Moon received stronger support this time from conservatives and moderates alike, as well as from people in all age groups except those in their 30s.

Some 44 percent of respondents disapproved of Moon’s performance, down 3.8 percentage points from the previous week. Moon’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea maintained its lead with 45 percent, the highest figure this year, followed by the main opposition United Future Party with 29.8 percent.

Asked which party they intended to vote for in the proportional representation section of the April general elections, 28.8 percent of respondents said they would vote for the liberal Platform Party, while 28 percent said they supported the conservative Future Korea Party.

The Future Korea Party is a satellite group that the main opposition United Future Party launched in February to secure additional seats in the elections. In response, the governing Democratic Party of Korea established the Platform Party a month later.

The poll was commissioned by Seoul-based traffic broadcaster TBS and has a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. It was conducted on 1,518 eligible voters nationwide.

By Choi Si-young (siyoungchoi@heraldcorp.com)