Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Centrist voters move toward opposition as ruling conservatives go extreme
Police officers guard the front gate of the Constitutional Court in central Seoul, Sunday, two days before the court's final hearing on President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment takes place. Yonhap
By Anna J. Park
Moderate voters' support for Yoon's impeachment increases
With President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment trial nearing its final stage and the possibility of a snap presidential election becoming more tangible, centrist voters who had refrained from picking a side are now shifting toward the opposition to support impeachment and hope for the opposition’s victory, according to recent opinion polls.
While the ruling party's support base seemed to be expanding until early February, an increasing portion of centrists are turning their backs on the conservatives as their moves have become increasingly far right and extreme.
According to a poll conducted by Gallup Korea from Feb. 18 to 20 on 1,002 respondents nationwide and released on Friday, the approval rating of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) rose to 40 percent, 6 percentage points higher than the ruling People Power Party (PPP), which stood at 34 percent. This marks the largest gap between the two parties' approval ratings so far this year.
Until recently, support for both parties had fluctuated within a narrow gap of 1 or 2 percentage points. However, the gap has now widened, with the PPP dropping 5 percentage points from the previous week, while the DPK gained 2 percentage points.
The widening gap was even more pronounced among those who identified as centrists — the approval rate gap between the two parties stood at 20 percentage points, a large increase from 5 percentage points a week earlier. In detail, 42 percent of moderate voters supported the DPK, up from 37 percent a week earlier, while 22 percent of them showed support for the PPP, down from 32 percent.
“Despite the gap between the two major parties remaining within the margin of error of up to 6 percentage points, a certain fracture has emerged in what was previously a tightly contested race,” Gallup Korea said.
Moderate voters' growing support for the opposition party — or growing distance from the ruling party — is also seen in their opinions on the next presidential election and Yoon's impeachment.
Among the total respondents, regardless of their political inclination, 53 percent supported the opposition holding power in the next administration and 37 percent preferred the PPP staying in office. But among centrists, 62 percent supported the power change, up from 54 percent a week before, and 27 percent wanted the opposite, down from 33 percent.
Moreover, 69 percent of centrist voters supported Yoon's impeachment, far outweighing the opposite view that stood at 25 percent.
In another opinion poll conducted by four pollsters on 1,000 adults between Feb. 17 and 19, 67 percent of moderate voters supported Yoon's impeachment, higher than the average of all respondents at 55 percent.
Against this backdrop, if the presidential election is to be held sometime this spring, this shift in sentiment among centrists could become a crucial variable in determining the next administration. The poll results suggest that the PPP’s recent efforts appealed only to hardline conservatives and alienated moderate voters.
In recent weeks, some PPP lawmakers have aligned with ultra-right, extreme supporters of Yoon, visiting the jailed president and raising questions about fairness of the Constitutional Court's impeachment trial.
"The PPP’s recent actions may give centrists the impression that the party is shifting toward the extreme," political commentator Park Sang-byung said. "Those who were temporarily favorable to the ruling party or were undecided are increasingly likely to return to supporting the DPK, much like at the start of the martial law crisis in early December."
As for the most favored political figure for the next presidential race, DPK leader Lee Jae-myung maintained his lead at 34 percent support. Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Moon-soo, who emerged as a contender from the conservative bloc, followed Lee but his support rate remained at only 9 percent, down 3 percentage points from the previous week.
The Gallup poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, with a credibility rate of 95 percent. Further details are available on the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission’s website.