A survey released Thursday showed that the ruling People Power Party(PPP) garnered a higher approval rating than the main opposition Democratic Party(DP) for the second straight week.

According to the National Barometer Survey, conducted by Embrain Public, KStat Research, Korea Research and Hankook Research, the approval rating for the ruling party stood at 38 percent, while those with a favorable view of the DP made up 36 percent of the total.

The PPP’s approval rating rose two percentage points from a week ago, while the DP saw its approval rating rise three percentage points.

For the next presidential candidate, the survey showed that DP leader Lee Jae-myung was the most popular choice, favored by 28 percent of all respondents, while labor minister Kim Moon-soo was next at 14 percent.

The survey of one-thousand people aged 18 and older, conducted through telephone interviews from Monday to Wednesday, had a response rate of 22-point-two percent with a margin of error of plus or minus three-point-one percentage points and a 95 percent confidence level.