A recent poll released Thursday showed that 35 percent of the South Korean public supports the ruling People Power Party(PPP) and 33 percent supports the main opposition Democratic Party(DP).

According to the National Barometer Survey, conducted by Embrain Public, KStat Research, Korea Research and Hankook Research, the approval rating for the ruling party rose three percentage points from last week while the main opposition’s rating dropped three percentage points.

It marks the first time in about four months that public support for the PPP surpassed that of the DP, since the last week of September, when their approval ratings stood at 28 percent and 26 percent, respectively.

In the same survey, 36 percent of respondents said they will vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate if a presidential election is held this year, while 33 percent said they will choose the People Power Party candidate.

The survey of one-thousand-five people aged 18 and older, conducted through telephone interviews from January 13 to 15, had a response rate of 19-point-six percent with a margin of error of plus or minus three-point-one percentage points and a 95 percent confidence level.