盧武鉉的支持率大跌，主因係未能回應民眾的需求，主打意識型態的「陽光政策」，但未能回應一般人民對生活的實質不滿，尤其是支持他最力的年輕人，因為年輕人的失業率昇高而充滿不滿情緒，未能獲得化解。
自由國際新聞有刊此篇文章，譯文如下：
眼看南韓總統盧武鉉的任期即將邁入最後一年，其民意支持度近來再創新低，當歸咎者並非他對北韓的懷柔政策，亦非平壤舉行核試的衝擊，經濟問題才是導致盧武鉉民調聲望有如自由落體的主因。
負債、教育成本高漲 選民失望
盧武鉉的施政滿意度僅剩十一％，執政黨「開放的我們黨」資深議員千正培坦承，失去民意支持的主因在於政府在民生問題上表現欠佳。儘管總體經濟表現不壞，成長率仍維持在四％以上，一般民眾卻過著苦哈哈的日子。
由於總體經濟持續成長，股價迭創新高，盧武鉉對在野黨指稱經濟堪慮的警告嗤之以鼻，沒有察覺到一般民眾並未分享到經濟成長的碩果，反而深陷於家庭債台高築、教育成本高漲，以及眼看房地產飆漲而無力安身的困境，他的支持率也因而一路下滑。
確實，即使北韓核武危機加深了首爾和華府的嫌隙，南韓選民並未將此視為攸關生死的頭等大事，反而再次確立了南韓別無選擇地必須持續和北韓交往的共識。
由於盧武鉉已成跛鴨，又受限於憲法規定不能連選連任，南韓政壇已開始將注意力移轉到預定明年十二月舉行的總統大選，反對黨也已開始研擬比北韓問題更具號召力的政治議程。
可能代表最大反對黨「大國黨」角逐下屆總統的前首爾市長李明博表示，下屆總統大選最主要的議題將是經濟，其次才是北韓發展核武或其他兩韓議題。和其他同黨同志一樣，李明博也批評盧武鉉對北韓過於軟弱，但主打北韓問題對反對陣營並無好處，因為除激越言詞外，南韓朝野的北韓政策並無明顯差異。
李明博表示，交往政策應予「調整」，但非放棄。他將加入美國在南韓水域盤檢北韓船隻的行動，但前提是美國必須理解南韓將不惜代價避免與北韓軍事對抗的立場。他也將持續推動南韓在北韓境內投資開發的經建計畫。
選民對意識形態議題疲乏
二○○二年，形象清新的盧武鉉以擴大和北韓交往、維持不受華府控制的獨立性，以及民主化等訴求，順利登上青瓦台的大位，進而賦予檢調系統、稅務機關和情報部門更大的自主權。
崇實大學政治學教授康元澤指出，歷屆總統都是經由前述三大部門行使權力，但盧武鉉在先蒙其利後也為其所害，民主畢竟無法走回頭路。政治分析家指出，盧武鉉沒來得及體認韓國人民如今樂於享受民主化的果實，因為他是以意識形態為號召而當選，但選民對意識形態議題已感疲乏，經濟議題才是他們關注的焦點。北韓問題並非盧武鉉滿意度下滑的禍首。
Roh loses support as South Koreans struggle
By Norimitsu Onishi
The New York Times
Bruised by South Korea’s cutthroat politics, bewildered by voters’ rapidly changing concerns and battered mercilessly in the polls, President Roh Moo Hyun is limping toward the last year of his term.
But it is not Roh’s engagement of North Korea, or even its recent nuclear test, that has saddled him with a current approval rating of 11 percent.
"The main reason we have lost support is that we were not able to perform well on issues of livelihood," said Chun Jung Bae, a senior lawmaker in the governing Uri Party who is a close ally of Roh.
"The overall economy is not bad - the growth rate is over 4 percent - but the life of the average person is very difficult," Chun said.
Indeed, even as the North Korean crisis keeps widening the gap between Seoul and Washington, it is nothing like a hot-button issue here among voters. North Korea’s nuclear test last month has, if anything, reconfirmed the national consensus that South Korea has no choice but to keep its policy of engaging North Korea.
But with Roh weak and limited to one term by the Constitution, attention has begun shifting to the presidential election in December 2007, and the political opposition is already focusing on a potentially more resonant issue than North Korea.
"The biggest issue in the next election will be the economy, and then the North Korean nuclear issue or other inter-Korean issues," said Lee Myung Bak, former mayor of Seoul, who is the leading presidential candidate of the Grand National Party, the main opposition.
Lee, like other members of his conservative party, have criticized Roh as coddling the North. But putting the spotlight on North Korea in the next election would expose the fact that, beneath the harsh words, the opposition’s approach to the North Korea is not radically different.
"I and my party, the GNP, feel the engagement policy should be adjusted," Lee said in an interview. "But we’re not saying we should not carry it out or should reject it."
Unlike Roh, Lee said he would join a U.S.-led effort to inspect North Korean vessels in South Korean waters, but only, he added, if the United States understood that South Koreans wanted to avoid military confrontation at all cost. He said he would continue South Korea’s two main economic projects with the North: a resort and an industrial park.
It is an indication of how much the political ground has shifted here in the past four years that the debate over North Korea is taking a back seat in the next election. In 2002, Roh, a relatively little-known former legislator who had made his name defending students and labor organizers against the military government of the 1980s as a human rights lawyer, swept to victory with promises of engagement with the North, independence from Washington and democratization in his own country.
As an outsider, Roh made headway in breaking the collusive relationship between politics and the country’s traditional power holders by diminishing the role of the conservative media and letting prosecutors pursue wrongdoing by the conglomerates. He gave autonomy to prosecutors, tax collectors and intelligence officials.
"In the past, every president wielded power through these three offices," said Kang Won Taek, a political scientist at Soongsil University here. Yet, he added, Roh is to some extent a victim of his own success.
"Koreans are now satisfied with the way Korean democracy is working," he said. "People are free."
Political analysts like Jeong Han Wool, a polling expert who is executive director of the East Asia Institute, a think tank here, say Roh was too slow in recognizing that voters now want to enjoy the fruits of democratization.
"He was elected on ideological issues," Jeong said. "But voters became exhausted on ideological issues and more interested in economic issues. North Korea did not have much impact on his approval ratings."
With South Korea experiencing solid growth and record stock prices, Roh initially dismissed descriptions of a slumping economy as opposition bombast, experts said. He failed to see that growth was not trickling down to the average voter, who became increasingly frustrated with rising household debts, high education costs and unaffordable real estate prices.
Because of Roh’s perceived inattentiveness to the economy, his approval rating first dipped below 30 percent two years ago as he lost most of his moderate supporters, Jeong said. It fell further, into the teens earlier this year, as his young backers also grew increasingly displeased about the economy and the high youth jobless rate, he said.
Roh looked increasingly out of touch as he kept his focus on ideological issues, including an attempt to look squarely at Korea’s wartime and postwar eras. He set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that was charged with investigating unpleasant facets of the country’s history that had long been covered up, like cases of collaboration with Japanese colonial rulers and human rights violations during military rule.
"Looking into the past is something that every society must do," said the Reverend Song Ki In, president of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "No voters can deny this. But they do complain there are more immediate issues that need to be taken care of, more bread-and-butter issues."
Song, a Roman Catholic priest who first came to know Roh during their pro-democracy struggle, said Roh did not "compromise with those who are not righteous."
"If his personality was not like this," Song said, "he wouldn’t be in this trouble right now."
Roh often appeared to lack the political skills to build ties, even with members of his own party in Parliament. After the North’s nuclear test, leaders of his party floated the idea of forming a new party as a way to loosen their ties with the unpopular president, the South Korean news media reported.
"There may have been one or two people who wanted to distance themselves from President Roh Moo Hyun, but it was not a big movement," Chun said.
Around that time, Roh visited his predecessor, Kim Dae Jung, at his private residence and appeared to ask for his backing.
In an interview, Kim - who received a Nobel Peace Prize for originating the Sunshine Policy toward the North and still enjoys strong support, especially in his native southwest region - said the two men had avoided talking about the domestic political situation.
"I did not want to intervene or participate in the issues of domestic politics," Kim said.
Whatever was discussed between them, Kim’s public show of support was enough to quiet the unrest in Roh’s party and to deflect pressure from the opposition and the United States to punish North Korea.
"On the issue of the Korean Peninsula," Kim said, "we both agreed that the Sunshine Policy, the principles of the engagement policy, should be kept and maintained."
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