SEOUL, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating tumbled this week on controversy over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s participation in the South Korea-hosted Winter Olympics, a local survey showed Thursday.

According to the Realmeter poll, support for Moon plunged 6.2 percentage points over the week to 59.8 percent this week. Moon's support scores fell below 60 percent for the first time since he took office in May last year.

The result was based on a poll of 1,509 voters conducted from Monday to Wednesday. It had 2.5 percentage points in margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.

Conservative politicians and conservative media outlets criticized the Moon government for the DPRK's participation in the 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games set to run from February to March at South Korea's eastern county of PyeongChang.

Support for Moon's ruling Democratic Party shed 2.2 percentage points over the week to 46.1 percent this week.

It was followed by the Liberty Korea Party with 21 percent and the centrist People's Party with 7 percent. The minor conservative Righteous Party and the minor progressive Justice Party gained 6.3 percent and 4.9 percent respectively.