Yoon Suk-yeol, the conservative president of South Korea, won the presidential election on March 9, 2022, by defeating his opponent Lee Jae-myung by just 0.7 percentage point. It was the narrowest margin of victory in South Korea since the country adopted a direct election system in 1987, ending decades of military rule.
When Yoon took office in May 2022, his approval rating was hovering around 53 percent; most presidents in South Korea are supported by the public in their first year in office. However, Yoon’s popularity has dropped significantly in the past two years. In the last week of June 2022, his approval rating fell below his disapproval rating for the first time, and has never recovered.
Although his party won the local elections held three months after the 2022 presidential election, his unpopularity was recently demonstrated in the general elections held in April as the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) won a landslide victory again. It was a crucial moment as the party was led by Lee Jae-myung, Yoon’s rival in the 2022 election, who will likely run for president again in March 2027. In the wake of this victory, Lee ran again for the party’s leadership election in August and secured his seat successfully.
According to the latest poll by Gallup Korea, Yoon’s approval rating was at 23 percent after the first week of September, indicating that the majority of South Koreans are dissatisfied with his statesmanship. And that represented a modest improvement: in late May, Yoon registered his lowest-ever rating with just 21 percent support. In Gallup’s weekly poll, Yoon has not seen his approval rating break 30 percent since March 2024.
South Korean president serve a single five-year term. Yoon still has more than two-and-a-half years to run the country. Considering his top-down approach on a range of issues, however, he may not be able to garner support from the people.
The Gallup poll also let respondents provide their own answers to explain their disapproval of Yoon. Among the top responses were Yoon’s plan to expand medical school quotas, economic issues and inflation, a lack of communication, arbitrary and unilateral leadership, and a poor diplomatic performance.
Here is a run-down of some of the major issues that have cost Yoon public support.
Doctors’ Strike
Since February, junior doctors have staged walkouts as a protest to the government’s plan to increase the annual medical school admission quota by 2,000 students for the next 10 years. More than 12,000 junior doctors have walked off the job while medical professors also joined the strike.
In the initial stage, the Ministry of Health warned those on strike to return to work, or otherwise their license could be suspended. However, it halted this plan and eased restrictions to help medical students and doctors back into their education and hospitals, respectively.
The lengthy walkout is taking a toll on South Korea’s healthcare system. Reportedly, only 8 percent of junior doctors are on duty in 211 general hospitals across the country – which led more and more hospitals to refuse to take emergency patients due staffing shortages.
In one recent case, according to media reports, after a female college student went into cardiac arrest, a hospital located just 100 meters away refused to transport her to the facility. And there have been numerous reports of those who are not in a state of serious illness being refused treatment in the emergency rooms of the university hospitals.
The medical community has demanded that the Yoon government nullify its decision, even though the Education Ministry finalized its plan to expand the medical school admission quota starting next year.
Both sides are calling for a renewal of the stalled negotiations, but the government has refused to make concessions to the medical community. The months-long doctors’ strike will last indefinitely until the government, the political parties and the medical community reach an agreement.
Public support for the expansion of medial student quota was initially high, with Gallup Korea finding 76 percent of Koreans in favor when the plan was first announced in February 2024. Amid the lengthy doctors’ strike, however, support has ebbed, dropped to 56 percent in the first week of September 2024. A plurality of Koreans believe the government should make concessions and “adjust the size and timing” of the increase to resolve the doctors’ concerns.
Since 2006, no government has succeeded in adding medical school admission quota, although the country has faced a lack of number of doctors for more than a decade. According to the data of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released last year, South Korea has 2.6 doctors for every 1,000 people, among the lowest ratios in the developed world.
In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Moon Jae-in government also tried to expand the medical school admission quota by 4,000 over 10 years, adding 400 students annually. Then as now, the medical community slammed the plan, leading the Moon government to back down, as doctors were needed desperately in hospitals due to the pandemic.
Some in the ruling People Power Party have proposed that the government walk back its decision and negotiate with the medical community but Yoon has insisted that adding 2,000 medical students is the minimum figure based on scientific evidence. However, his government has never elucidated how it reached this estimate or shared its scientific approach.
“I am not sure this could be an effective measure to add more doctors specializing in cardiothoracic surgery, ob-gyn, ED [the emergency department], and pediatrics,” Lee Hyun-ji, a college student in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, told The Diplomat. “What if medical students do not want to specialize in the areas where we need doctors? As long as the government has no power to force them to choose critical medical fields, I am not sure if it is worth it for the people to sacrifice for this medical crisis to have more doctors ten years later.”
Doctors have demanded the government handle the challenges they face first – such as uneven distribution of doctors across expertise, poor working conditions for doctors in critical fields, and high litigation risks – before adding medical students. The government has expressed its willingness to handle such issues as well but the order remains a sticking point. The medical community seems unwilling to cooperate with the government’s plan until it resolves their challenges first.
Unconstructive Rivalry With the Democratic Party
Yoon’s extremely rocky relationship with the political opposition is another issue for his presidency.
Yoon started his term with an opposition party-controlled National Assembly two years ago. As the ruling People Power Party badly lost the general elections in April, he will be the first South Korean president to complete his term without support from a ruling party-controlled National Assembly.
Out of 300 lawmakers, 192 lawmakers are with the opposition, thereby allowing them to pass whatever bills they want. However, the president has power to veto the passed bills, and Yoon has already exercised his veto more than any president in history.
One of the main ongoing clashes between the government and the opposition is a contentious bill mandating a special counsel to investigate allegations surrounding the death of Marine Corporal Chae Su-geun, who died during a search and rescue operation in a flooded area in July 2023.
The main opposition, the Democratic Party, has said the special counsel probe is necessary to clear up numerous questions surrounding the death of Chae – and allegations of political interference in the ensuing investigation. Among the topics the DP wants to be investigated are former Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup’s calls with members of the Presidential Office during a critical time. Lee even ordered a former chief of the Marine Corps to postpone transmitting investigation data he collected to local police agencies, which the DP said was an illegal act.
In July, the police cleared Marine 1st Division Commander Lim Seong-geun – the highest-ranking officer under investigation – of negligent homicide charges related to the death of Chae. The Presidential Office took this as a validation of its insistence that the matter is closed. The Presidential Office signaled that Yoon would veto again if the DP passes the bill again in the upcoming weeks.
However, nearly 70 percent of South Koreans support the DP’s moves to pass the special probe bill to investigate suspicions surrounding the Presidential Office and the Defense Ministry. This tit-for-tat between the two will last until Yoon publishes the bill – or the opposition manages to convince a few PPP lawmakers to help them override his veto.
“’The one who refuses a probe is the perpetrator’ is what Yoon said during the presidential campaign,” Kim Sang-hyun, a company worker who completed his military service 10 years ago, told The Diplomat. “I really am not sure why the president has vetoed this special counsel probe bill.”
Along with this stalemate, the prosecution’s years-long investigations of Lee Jae-myung, and the newest movement to investigate allegations against Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, clearly fueled anger among liberals and DP supporters. Yoon’s critics see the cases as politically motivated.
When Yoon became the first president to skip the opening of the National Assembly on September 2, it fully demonstrated how he views the DP-controlled legislature. Unless Yoon recalibrates his policies and approaches, the rift with the National Assembly will pose a huge barrier for him to fulfill his campaign pledges.
Failure to Manage Relations With North Korea
One area where South Korea’s president can avoid legislative constraints is foreign policy. As a conservative president, Yoon has taken a hawkish approach to North Korea compared with his predecessor’s dovish overture centered on dialogue and peace.
In order to deter rising threats and challenges posed by North Korea, Yoon has reiterated the importance of forming an ironclad alliance with the United States. He reinvigorated the joint military drills with the U.S., which Pyongyang calls an “invasion rehearsal.” Further, he actively sought to restore relations with Japan to construct a trilateral Japan-South Korea-U.S. coalition in the region.
However, North Korea responded to Yoon’s approach by continuing to beef up its nuclear capabilities and newly strengthening ties with Russia. It is one of the rare countries supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by supplying munitions. According to the New York Times, Russia recently received the North’s Hwasong-11 short-range ballistic missiles for use on the Ukrainian battlefield.
Moscow also pledged to help Pyongyang build reconnaissance satellites. With economic assistance from Russia likely, North Korea will not seek dialogue with the South during Yoon’s term. Pyongyang is more likely to keep sending trash balloons across the border, an act raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea may try to seek room for dialogue with the United States if Donald Trump wins the election in November. However, there will be no room for Yoon to participate in any North Korea-U.S. talks, considering Pyongyang’s hatred toward Yoon personally.
Although Yoon recently announced the “August 15 Unification Doctrine” to reform North Korea, his initiatives have not succeeded in drawing attention from Pyongyang. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has rejected the idea of unification, instead labeling South Korea “the most harmful primary foe and invariable principal enemy.” In September 2023, the North also stipulated the policy of strengthening its nuclear forces in the constitution, implying that its nuclear weapons will no longer be negotiable.
Despite growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Yoon’s mismanagement of the inter-Korean relations is not a primary reason for his unpopularity at home. Most South Koreans have grown numb to the threats posed by North Korea.
“Unless North Korea fires missiles directly to my town, I will not be surprised by any provocations they make,” Lee Eun-hye, a college student living in the northern part of Seoul, told The Diplomat. “I don’t even remember how many times I saw articles reporting North Korea’s missile tests.”
Along with its trash balloon launches toward South Korea, the North also resumed missile tests, which would increase tensions on the Korean Peninsula further. On September 12, the South Korean military said North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles from Pyongyang to its east coast.
Yoon’s Suppression of Media
In his approach to North Korea and beyond, Yoon has repeatedly emphasized “freedom” and “democracy” as a core value for South Korea. Ironically, however, his moves toward certain journalists and media outlets rather suggest that he is not supportive of the freedom of the press when they report critical stories regarding his government or his family.
Yoon’s clashes with media began when MBC, one of the major broadcasting corporations in South Korea, reported his hot mic scandal during his visit to New York in September 2022, only four months after he assumed office. Since then, MBC has been tarred as a propaganda outlet reporting fake news among Yoon government officials and supporters.
Some MBC reporters who were covering Yoon’s office were banned from accessing Yoon’s flight two months after they reported his hot mic scandal, bringing massive criticism over his office’s antagonism. The Presidential Office said MBC had reported “fake news” about what Yoon said in New York, but nearly 60 percent of South Koreans thought there was nothing wrong with the report.
Journalist organizations including the International Federation of Journalists and Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club also slammed the restrictions on MBC, saying that the government needs to treat all media with the “same principles of access, regardless of the tone or nature of the journalistic coverage.”
From the MBC incident just a few months into Yoon’s term, journalists began to fear the government could sue them if their reports were very negatively by the Presidential Office.
The police and prosecutors raised homes and newsrooms of journalists who were accused of spreading fake news by the Presidential Office.
Soon after taking office, Yoon created a new Presidential Office to keep his promise during the presidential campaign that he would not work at Cheongwadae, or the Blue House, South Korea’s equivalent to the White House in the United States. Yoon’s stated rationale was that he wanted to communicate more effectively with journalists and people. In the wake of his hot mic scandal and exchange between a MBC reporter and his aide, Yoon indefinitely halted his way-to-work press conference. The practice only lasted six months in total.
South Korea dropped to 62nd place in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index issued by Reporters Without Borders in May. The country was in 47th place last year, and in 43rd in 2022, showing the constant decline of press freedom since Yoon took office.