Gap narrows between ruling, main opposition parties ahead of local elections: poll

The gap in the approval ratings for the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) remains considerably wide, though it continued to narrow this week, a poll showed Friday, with less than three weeks left before the June 3 local elections. According to the survey conducted Tuesday through Thursday by Gallup Korea on 1,011 people aged 18 and older, support for the PPP rose 2 percentage points from the previous poll, conducted two weeks earlier, to 23 percent, while that for the ruling party dipped 1 percentage point to 45 percent over the cited period. The gap between the parties' approval ratings had reached as high as 30 percentage points at the start of last month, when the rating for the ruling party hit 48 percent, the highest since the Lee Jae Myung administration took office in June 2025, while that for the PPP fell to 18 percent. The gap has since narrowed to 28 percentage points in the fourth week of April, then further to 25 percentage points the following week and again to 22 percentage points this week. In the latest survey, 44 percWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times