hankyoreh

The National Assembly in Seoul. (Kim Gyoung-ho/The Hankyoreh)

With South Korea’s general elections on Apr. 10, just 30 days away, a new poll finds that more voters in the greater Seoul area think President Yoon Suk-yeol needs to be taught a lesson (53%) than those who want to support Yoon’s program (41%). Also notable was 19% of voters in the Seoul metropolitan area said they plan on voting for the National Innovation Party, founded by former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, under the proportional representation system. This was the same level of support for the Democratic Alliance, the Democratic Party-led proportional affiliate.

The Hankyoreh commissioned polling organization Global Research to poll 1,008 adults living in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province through computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) on Mar. 8-9. The Seoul area, which includes the capital as well as the adjacent port city of Incheon and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, includes 122 (48%) of the country’s 254 electoral constituencies, making it the biggest battlefield in the general elections.

According to the poll, Seoul area residents are more inclined to condemn the Yoon administration than to defend it in the general elections, which fall in the third year of Yoon’s presidency.  Among respondents, 53% plan to vote for the opposition party as retribution against the Yoon administration, while 41% plan to vote for the ruling party to shore up Yoon’s governance.

In the capital of Seoul, which has 48 seats by itself, citizens were almost equally divided between punishing the Yoon administration (47%) and supporting it (48%). But residents of Gyeonggi Province (60 seats) and Incheon (14 seats) leaned more toward punishment (57% and 56%, respectively) than support (38% and 37%).

When asked which party they would vote for in their constituency if the vote were held tomorrow, 42% of respondents chose the main opposition Democratic Party, compared to 34% for the People Power Party (PPP). But when asked which party they would support in proportional representation, the People Future Party (the PPP’s proportional affiliate) came in first at 31%, followed by the Democratic Alliance (19%) and the National Innovation Party (19%). In the same poll, the New Reform Party (4%), Green Justice Party (2%) and New Future Party (1%) all charted in the single digits.

In terms of simple party support, the National Innovation Party held just 7%, far behind the PPP (35%) and the Democratic Party (35%). But there are definite indications that many Democratic Party supporters intend to vote for the Democratic Party when it comes to the constituency and for the National Innovation Party when it comes to proportional representation. The National Innovation Party isn’t running any candidates in constituencies and plans to focus instead on winning seats through proportional representation.

When asked about the Democratic Party’s nomination process, the most common response (35%) was that the nominations were unfair and designed to benefit specific individuals and factions. In regard to the PPP’s nominations, the largest share of respondents (26%) said that most nominees are members of the establishment with hardly any newcomers to be seen.

The poll used a random sample of anonymized phone numbers provided by Korea’s three main telecoms. It had a response rate of 10.3%, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points and a confidence level of 95%.

For more details, visit the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission (https://www.nesdc.go.kr/portal/main.do in Korean).

By Seo Young-ji, staff reporter

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