The conservative main opposition People Power Party’s approval rating has overtaken that of the ruling party for the first time since President Lee Jae Myung took office last year, buoyed in part by the discontent over June 3 local election ballot shortage.
According to a poll by Realmeter released Monday, the People Power Party’s favorability came to 44.3 percent, up 3.2 percentage points from the previous week.
Monday’s figure was the highest since the fourth week of January in 2025, when former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment led to a brief rebound in the conservative party’s favorability.
The Democratic Party of Korea’s favorability, by contrast, fell 3.8 percentage points to 38 percent, dropping below the 40 percent mark for the first time in 10 months. It also declined the week before, after a break in the final week of May when South Korea was in an election blackout period.
Realmeter viewed the poll as the outcome of the People Power Party’s move to take a hard line over a series of revelations of flawed election management of the National Election Commission in the local elections. The party’s position has “absorbed support from progressives, moderates and people in their 20s,” according to Realmeter.
The Democratic Party saw support weaken in key regions where it enjoys strong support, such as Gyeonggi Province, Incheon and the Jeolla provinces, amid the election mismanagement scandal and internal conflicts ahead of the party leadership contest, according to the pollster.
Meanwhile, Lee’s approval rating dropped for the fourth straight week to 51.5 percent, according to Monday’s poll, hitting its lowest point since October.
“Following the ruling party’s attempt to pass a special counsel (to cancel Lee’s criminal indictments), conservatives rallied and some moderates switched party affiliation to the conservative party, and what accelerated the trend was the ballot shortage crisis,” political commentator Lee Jong-hoon told The Korea Herald.
In the meantime, Rep. Jang Dong-hyeok, chair of the People Power Party, pushed ahead with his call for an election rerun as rallies in Seoul protested NEC glitches in which some voters failed to exercise their right to vote.
“Tens of thousands of young people and citizens moved on to rally at Olympic Park on the weekend peacefully for a citizen resistance movement” Jang said in a supreme council meeting Monday, “If Lee and the Democratic Party comes up with the right answer (to do a redo election), the rally will come to an end, but the ruling bloc does not flinch.”
Jang went on to claim that the administration views demonstrators at Olympic Park in Seoul as conspiracy theory agitators who were obstructing police duties.
While the People Power Party appears to be gaining wider support from the public, calls for a leadership overhaul continued.
Yang Hyang-ja, a member of the People Power Party’s Supreme Council, demanded in Monday’s meeting that all nine members of the party’s decision-making body, including Jang and herself, step down at once. Her remarks were met with Jang’s refusal at the meeting, citing the recent Realmeter poll.
According to Lee Jong-hoon, the election appears to have consolidated support for Jang’s leadership within the party.
In addition, the election wins of figures influencing minority factions within the conservative movement, such as Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and Rep. Han Dong-hoon, the estranged former People Power Party chair who was elected as an independent lawmaker on June 3, also triggered “an increased level of internal cohesion” in difficult times for the party mainstream, Lee added.
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