Amid record-low approval rating, Yoon forgoes Assembly budget address

President Yoon Suk Yeol skipped his 2025 budget address at parliament on Monday as he faces record-low popularity with his domestic agenda now overshadowed by the main opposition party having ramped up the pressure on him based on the recent revelation of a phone conversation suggesting he interfered in an election.

On Monday, Yoon's approval rating fell 2.2 percentage points to the lowest point of 22.4 percent since his inauguration in May 2022, according to a poll by Realmeter.

The poll of 2,516 respondents on the fifth week of October indicated that those in their 70s and above saw the steepest decline among all age brackets.

The same was true for respondents from the southeastern region of Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province combined, among all regions. Those two groups have traditionally been considered supportive of conservatives and their agendas.

The conservative president's popularity has dropped 7.5 percentage points in the past two months, according to the Realmeter poll.

Respondents who showed approval of the ruling People Power Party also fell by 3.2 percentage points to an all-time low of 29.4 percent.

On Friday, a separate poll by Gallup Korea indicated that Yoon's job approval rating fell below the 20 percent threshold for the first time since he took office in May 2022.

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo read the president's 2025 budget proposal at the National Assembly on his behalf amid the intensifying confrontation between the president and other political leaders.

Yoon became the first South Korean head of state to skip delivering the annual budget proposal to the parliament in 11 years.

In the 28-minute parliamentary speech laying out the proposal, read by Han, Yoon asked the Assembly to confirm his 677 trillion won ($494.3 billion) budget proposal in a timely matter to improve people's livelihoods.

He also said fiscal support is key to addressing the declining birth rate. In light of this, Yoon asked the parliament to swiftly pass bills to establish a new ministry dedicated to population planning.

Yoon's speech for the 2025 budget proposal also touched upon the matter of his administration's reform push, aimed at preventing public pension depletion, improving lack of access to medical services, restructuring the labor system to make it flexible and performance-based, as well as implementing education reform such as the introduction of AI digital textbooks.

However, National Assembly Speaker Rep. Woo Won-shik expressed regret before Han came up to the podium. Woo told the parliament Yoon failed to deliver on his duty to share his thoughts about the national budget, adding that Yoon's absence "cannot be justified and left citizens disappointed."

Yoon's absence had been announced by his Chief of Staff Chung Jin-suk in a parliamentary audit on Friday, where he had said the prime minister would appear at the budget proposal instead of Yoon.

In response, Rep. Kang Yu-jung, floor spokesperson of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, criticized Yoon on Sunday for "just trying to pick and choose what he wants to do," given that Yoon also failed to deliver a speech at the opening of the parliament in the 22nd National Assembly in September, and now had Prime Minster Han read his budget proposal for him.

Instead of appearing at the National Assembly, Yoon on Monday morning presided over a regular closed-door meeting with his aides in his office. According to Yoon's office, Yoon called on his office to yield some kind of outcome from his administration's reform push which could affect ordinary people's lives by the end of this year. Yoon delivered a similar message to Prime Minister Han during a regular meeting on Monday. The presidential office will also work to strengthen communication with the public regarding Yoon's reform agenda.

Later on Monday, the presidential office announced that Yoon policy aide Sung Tae-yoon and principal deputy director of national security Kim Tae-hyo are planning briefings about Yoon's achievements and policy goals on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

Before Monday, Yoon did not skip his previous two annual budget proposals in 2022 and 2023.

This came as the opposition party alleged on Thursday that Yoon had interfered in a by-election in June 2022 by revealing the recording of a phone call with his former political consultant, Myung Tae-kyun, that suggested Yoon had been apparently trying to influence the ruling party's decision over its candidate nomination process for the by-election to fulfill a favor to Myung.

The election interference allegations have multiplied the pressure on the first couple, which has long sparked calls for a special counsel investigation into Yoon's wife Kim Keon Hee, as well as potentially Yoon himself.

Han Dong-hoon, chair of the People Power Party, called for Yoon's apology over the revelation of a private conversation between Yoon and Myung, whom Han described as "a political broker."

"We are highly apologetic about the revelation of a recorded phone call between the president and a political broker," Han said.

"Ordinary people's disappointment poses a threat to the government and the ruling party. ... The president should be honest without hiding anything to take proper measures such as an apology over the matter that concerns people," he said.

Besides the election meddling scandal, Yoon's political opponents have long accused Yoon of state interference in the Marine Corps' internal probe into the cause of the death of a young conscript during a rescue operation in July last year. The opposition parties have also called for a special probe of first lady Kim Keon Hee, pushing through two bills. Yoon vetoed both bills, calling them "anticonstitutional."