President Yoon Suk Yeol's approval rating has dropped below 40 percent for the first time in four weeks.

According to a Realmeter survey of two-thousand-504 adults nationwide conducted between last Monday and Friday, 38-point-six percent of respondents approved Yoon's handling of state affairs, down one-point-six percentage points from the previous week.

Fifty-eight-point-four percent of the respondents were dissatisfied with the president, up two-point-three percentage points over the same period.

The pollster attributed the fall to worsened public sentiment over the soaring prices of fruit and a controversy involving former defense minister Lee Jong-sup, who was recently named ambassador to Australia despite being under investigation. 

The survey, commissioned by the Economy Business Newspaper, had a confidence level of 95 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.