Next Busan Mayor: Park Hyung-jun 18.6%, Lee Eon-ju 13.6%, Kim Young-choon 12.3% [Realmeter]

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] In a suitability survey for the next Busan mayoral candidate, former lawmaker Park Hyung-jun of the People Power Party is leading, according to the poll results.

Realmeter announced on the 9th that, commissioned by OhmyNews, it surveyed 808 Busan citizens on the 6th and 7th, presenting 12 Busan mayoral candidates and measuring suitability. Former lawmaker Park received the highest response at 18.6%. Following him, former lawmaker Lee Eon-ju of the People Power Party received 13.6%, and Kim Young-choon, Secretary-General of the National Assembly, received 12.3%, ranking second and third respectively. All these differences are within the margin of error (±3.4 percentage points).

Other candidates included Seo Byung-soo, a People Power Party lawmaker (11.9%), former Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Hae-young (5.5%), former People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jin-bok and Acting Mayor of Busan Byun Sung-wan (4.4%), former People Power Party lawmaker Park Min-sik (3.2%), and former People Power Party lawmaker Yoo Ki-joon (2.0%).

When the support for the 12 candidates presented as options was divided into pro-government and opposition camps and summed respectively, pro-government candidates received 23.2%, while opposition candidates received 56.4% support.

Regarding the frame of next year's by-election, support for the opposition party's view that the government and ruling party should be judged exceeded half at 56.6%. Opinions supporting the ruling party for stable national governance accounted for only 32.3%.

As for Busan's key regional issues, the most respondents chose the promotion of Gadeokdo New Airport (29.5%), followed by resolving the east-west gap (18.8%), expanding public hospitals (10.3%), administrative integration of Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam (8.0%), and redevelopment of Bukhang (7.6%). In particular, when asked about support or opposition to the promotion of Gadeokdo New Airport, 54.8% were in favor, and 35.7% opposed.

Regarding whether the Gadeokdo New Airport will become a reality, 48.4% responded 'high feasibility,' while 42.7% responded 'low feasibility,' showing a close divide.

Party support ratings were 44.7% for the People Power Party, 25.8% for the Democratic Party, 7.2% for the People Party, 5.1% for the Open Democratic Party, and 2.9% for the Justice Party.

For more detailed information, please refer to the Realmeter website or the Central Election Poll Deliberation Commission website.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.