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By Kang Hyun-kyung
President Park Geun-hye's approval rating fell sharply to 29 percent, the lowest since she took office in February 2013.
The Gallup weekly poll of 1,000 adults was conducted for three days from June 16 with a margin of error of plus or minus of 3.1 percentage points.
The figure represents a drop of 4 percentage points from a week earlier.
Sixty-one percent negatively assessed Park's performance, up three percentage points from the previous week.
Among those who were negative about Park's performance, 33 percent said the Park government failed to control the spreads of MERS.
Twelve percent questioned Park's leadership and the same number of respondents cited her lack of communication skills as key factors that made them lose their confidence in the president.
Support for Park among citizens in their 20s, 30s and 40s hovered around 10 percent, whereas her ratings among those who are in their 60s or older were around 60 percent.
The survey showed that support for Park dropped more than 10 percentage points among the residents of Chungcheong and Gyeongsang provinces.
South and North Gyeongsang provinces are the ruling Saenuri Party's home turf.
This marks the third time that Park's job approval rating has sunk to 29 percent this year.
The government has been under fire for its poor initial response to the outbreak of the virus.
Park has repeatedly vowed to end the spread of the virus, but the poll results suggest that she failed to win back the public's confidence.
Regarding the ratings for political parties, the ruling Saenuri Party got 40 percent while the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) registered 25 percent, followed by the splinter Justice Party's 3 percent.
Saenui's rating remained the same as the previous week, while the NPAD's marked an increase of 3 percentage points.
