Lee Jun-seok Leads Ahn Cheol-soo and Hong Joon-pyo in Presidential Candidate Poll... "Will Request to Remove My Name"

On the afternoon of the 30th, at the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center in Chipyeong-dong, Seo-gu, Gwangju, Lee Jun-seok, the candidate for party leader of the People Power Party, is presenting his policy speech at the joint rally for candidates for party leader and supreme council member from Gwangju, Jeonbuk, Jeonnam, and Jeju.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seoyoung Kwon] Former Supreme Council member Lee Jun-seok, who ran for the People Power Party leadership election, has appeared for the first time in the rankings of the next presidential election preference poll.

Korea Gallup announced on the 4th that it conducted a survey on the preference for the next political leader among 1,003 adult men and women aged 18 and over nationwide from the 1st to the 3rd. (Sample survey with a 95% confidence level and ±3.1 percentage points margin of error; for detailed information, refer to the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.) The poll results revealed that former Supreme Council member Lee Jun-seok of the People Power Party recorded a support rate of 3%.

Lee's support rate is the highest among opposition politicians except for former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl. It was higher than Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the People’s Party (2%), and Hong Joon-pyo, an independent lawmaker (1%). As he appeared for the first time in the next presidential election-related survey, he recorded a support rate surpassing prominent opposition politicians.

This survey was conducted in an open-ended format where voters freely named the politicians they support, rather than selecting from a list of candidates. Because of this, former Supreme Council member Lee, who does not meet the current legal candidate requirement of being at least 40 years old to run for president, was interpreted to have entered the rankings. Lee was born in 1985, making him 36 years old as of 2022, the year of the next presidential election.

Gallup analyzed this result by stating, "Former Supreme Council member Lee, who appeared for the first time in the next political leader preference survey, seems to have received focused attention after leading the preliminary People Power Party leadership election." In this survey, Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung received 24%, former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl 21%, former Democratic Party leader Lee Nak-yeon 5%, and former Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun 1% support.

Meanwhile, Lee’s camp expressed their position on the poll results on the 4th. After finishing the joint speech meeting of the People Power Party in Daejeon, Sejong, Chungbuk, and Chungnam held at the KT Talent Development Center in Daejeon, he told reporters, "I am grateful to the people for recognizing me as one of the next political leaders," but also explained, "As you well know, constitutionally, I am not qualified to run for president."

He added, "To prevent this result from unintentionally overshadowing the presidential candidates, even though it is an open-ended response, I will officially request after the party convention that my support rate not be mentioned."