President Moon Jae-in's approval rating dropped slightly from a week earlier, a poll showed Friday, apparently on mounting public criticism against his nominees for top government and court officials suspected of possible corruption or a distorted view on history.

In a survey conducted by Gallup Korea, 76 percent of 1,003 voters polled said they approved of the way the president managed state affairs.

The weekly poll was conducted from Tuesday through Thursday. The reading marked a 3 percentage point drop from a week earlier.
 

The decline apparently followed the recent controversy over Moon's nomination of Park Seong-jin, an engineering professor from Pohang University of Science and Technology, as new minister of SMEs and startups, who later was accused of holding conservative views on history that contradict those of the new liberal president.

Lee You-jung, a Constitutional Court justice-nominee, also faced suspicions of corruption after it was revealed the law professor from Seoul's Ewha Womans University made a fortune with stocks that many believe would not have been possible without inside or illicit information.

Lee announced her resignation earlier Friday, one day after the Financial Supervisory Service said it will launch a formal investigation.

Despite the drop in Moon's approval rating, his ruling Democratic Party saw its own rating go up by 2 percentage points on-week to 48 percent.

The approval rating of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party slipped 2 percentage points to 8 percent, while that of the liberal People's Party gained 2 percentage points to 7 percent.

The approval ratings of the splinter Bareun Party and the progressive Justice Party came to 7 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

The latest poll had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points and a confidence level of 95 percent. (Yonhap)