Yoon Tops List as "Worst President Ever," Who Was Rated the Best?

77% Say Yoon Sukyeol "Made Many Mistakes"
Followed by Chun Doohwan at 68% and Park Geunhye at 65%
Roh Moohyun Leads "Did Many Good Things" at 68%
Followed by Park Chunghhee at 62% and Kim Daejung at 60%

Former President Yoon Sukyeol. Photo by Joint Press Corps

Former President Yoon Sukyeol received the harshest criticism in a public opinion poll assessing the merits and faults of former presidents, with the highest percentage of respondents saying he "made many mistakes." In contrast, former President Roh Moo-hyun was ranked first as the former president who "did the best job."

According to the results released on November 28 by Gallup Korea, which surveyed 1,000 people aged 18 and older from November 25 to 27, 77% of respondents said that former President Yoon "made many mistakes," the highest among all former presidents. Only 12% said he "did many good things."

Following Yoon, former Presidents Chun Doo-hwan (68%), Park Geun-hye (65%), and Roh Tae-woo (50%) were also rated as having "made many mistakes" by a large proportion of respondents. Former Presidents Lee Myung-bak (46%), Moon Jae-in (44%), and Syngman Rhee (40%) were also evaluated as having more faults than merits.

Former President Roh Moo-hyun. People Living in the World Roh Moo-hyun Foundation

Among all former presidents, Roh Moo-hyun received the highest rating for "doing many good things," with 68% of respondents. Only 15% said he "made many mistakes." He was followed by Park Chung-hee (62%), Kim Dae-jung (60%), and Kim Young-sam (42%) in terms of positive evaluations.

Gallup Korea, which has conducted five surveys on this topic since 2012, analyzed the data by noting, "Over the past ten years, positive perceptions of former Presidents Kim Young-sam and Lee Myung-bak have increased, while negative perceptions have decreased," suggesting that "some form of reassessment appears to have taken place."

In the same survey, the approval rating (positive evaluation) for President Lee Jaemyung's job performance remained unchanged from the previous week at 60%. In contrast, the percentage of respondents who said he was "doing a poor job" rose by 1 percentage point from the previous week to 31%. Nine percent withheld their opinion.

The survey was conducted through telephone interviews using randomly generated mobile phone numbers. The margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level, the contact rate was 44.9%, and the response rate was 11.9%.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.