The poll surveyed 800 adults nationwide from Saturday to Sunday in random phone interviews. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent.
The respondents were asked to rate politicians in terms of their political influence and public confidence on a 10-point scale.
The poll result showed Lee received the highest rating as the most influential politician with 6.3 of 10 points, beating former GNP Chairwoman Park Geun-hye by a razor-thin margin.
Park was rated as the second-most influential politician with 6.1 points, followed by Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon (5.2 points), Gyeonggi Governor Kim Moon-soo (5.1 points) and main opposition Democratic Party Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu (4.6 points).
The poll showed that Lee maintained the top position for the most influential politician for three consecutive years while ratings for Park have continued to risen over the past three years.
Park, who’s regarded as a front-runner in the 2012 presidential race, received the highest public confidence ratings from respondents with 5.7 points followed by Lee (4.9 points), Kim (4.7 points) and Oh (4.6 points).
Sohn and Rhyu Si-min, head of the People’s Participation Party, two prominent liberal presidential candidates, received 4.2 points each.
The poll showed Park is still the most popular presidential contender and ranked as the top politician in terms of preference with 36.9 percent of respondents saying that they support her.
Rhyu, a close confidant of former President Roh Moo-hyun, was the only other candidate whose popularity was in double digits at 10.6 percent.
Other presidential hopefuls remained in the single digits, including Oh (8.1 percent), former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook (6.4 percent), Kim (5.2 percent), Liberty Forward Party Chairman Lee Hoi-chang (3.8 percent), Sohn (3.1 percent) and GNP Representative Chung Mong-joon (3 percent).
While the poll showed Rhyu has the highest presidential preference among the liberal candidates, the poll showed that the situation could change if the People’s Participation Party and Democratic Party formed an alliance for the forthcoming presidential election.
The poll found 21.1 percent said Sohn should become the liberal standard-bearer, with 18.8 supported Rhyu.