▲ President Lee Jae Myung delivers a commemorative speech at a Memorial Day ceremony at Seoul National Cemetery in southern Seoul on June 6, 2026. (Yonhap)
▲ This composite photo, taken June 3, 2026, shows lawmakers and officials of the ruling Democratic Party (top) and the main opposition People Power Party watching exit poll results for the local elections in Seoul. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

president-approval rating

Lee's approval rating dips amid controversy over ballot shortage in local elections

SEOUL, June 8 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating slipped this week due to negative sentiment over ballot shortages that disrupted last week's local elections, a poll showed Monday.

In the poll commissioned by EKN newspaper and conducted by Realmeter, 55.2 percent said Lee was doing a good job, down 3.9 percentage points from a week earlier. The weekly survey was conducted on 2,013 people aged 18 and older from Monday to Friday last week, excluding Wednesday when the local elections were held.

The negative assessment climbed 4.2 percentage points to 41 percent.

Realmeter said Lee's approval rating fell sharply after the local elections as criticism over the government's handling of the ballot paper shortage overlapped with the ruling Democratic Party (DP)'s failure to reclaim the Seoul mayoralty.

The sharp rise in the exchange rate later in the week further added to the negative sentiment, it said.

Thousands of protesters have been rallying near a vote-counting facility in eastern Seoul for the fourth consecutive day, demanding a new election after more than a dozen polling stations in Seoul ran out of ballots during Wednesday's elections.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.

In a separate survey conducted by the same pollster, support for the DP fell 3.1 percentage points from a week earlier to 41.8 percent, while support for the main opposition People Power Party rose 2.6 percentage points to 41.1 percent, narrowing the gap to 0.7 percentage point.

Realmeter said the DP's failure to secure the symbolic seat of Seoul mayoralty, despite winning 12 of the 16 key metropolitan mayoral and gubernatorial races, weighed on the ruling party's approval rating.

The DP's defeat in key battlegrounds in parliamentary by-elections held alongside the local elections, including Busan's Buk-A district and Pyeongtaek-B in Gyeonggi Province, led to a noticeable drop in support among centrist and young voters, according to the pollster.

The poll, conducted on 1,004 individuals aged 18 and over on Thursday and Friday, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, with a confidence level of 95 percent.

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