South Koreans vote on Wednesday in local elections expected to boost President Lee Jae Myung's ruling Democratic Party, in the first nationwide ballot since his snap presidential election victory last year.Voters will choose mayors and governors in 16 cities and provinces in a contest widely seen as an assessment of Lee's first year in office, and a test of whether the conservative People Power Party can recover from the fallout of former President Yoon Suk Yeol's failed martial law bid in 2024.
"The question is not whether the Democratic Party wins many places, but how much it wins by," Heo Jin-jae, director of public opinion at Gallup Korea, told a media briefing last week.
"If the Democratic Party wins Seoul and Busan, they can say they won a landslide. But if they fail to take Seoul, and even Busan, it may be uncomfortable for them to call it a sweeping victory, even if they win many other regions."
Polls show Lee has scored high marks for a pragmatic focus on pocketbook issues, corporate governance reforms and a stock rally that has pushed the benchmark KOSPI to repeated records, while government spending has helped offset high energy prices, analysts say.
Critics, however, say his administration has struggled to contain housing pressures and accuse him of using the courts and parliament to shield himself and allies from criminal cases.
