SEOUL: South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung (pic) saw his lead in the election campaign narrow sharply in the latest opinion poll released Friday (May 23) as the conservative ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo made up ground after their first TV debate.
The opposition Democratic Party nominee Lee had the backing of about 45% in a Gallup Korea poll conducted between May 20-22, a drop of 6 percentage points compared with the previous week. Support for the ruling People Power Party’s Kim rose by 7 percentage points to 36%.
While that still leaves Lee with the upper hand, Kim could draw neck and neck with him if he is able to convince the Reform Party’s Lee Jun-seok to stand down and he is able to garner most of his support.
The Reform Party’s Lee improved his standing by two percentage points to 10%, reaching the highest level since the founding of the party.
At a news conference late Thursday Lee said that he will not be joining forces with Kim and that he’ll stay in the race until the end, accusing Kim’s party of taking "insulting” actions to pressure him to merge their campaigns.
The poll comes after the contenders faced off in their first television debate on Sunday.
The survey also showed more people expressing their choices as the election approaches, with the proportion of undecided voters dropped to levels seen just before the last presidential election. A second televised debate is scheduled for Friday evening.
South Korea goes to the polls on June 3 to elect a new leader after six months of political instability, sparked by former President Yoon Suk-yeol’s abrupt declaration of martial law.
Investors are hoping the new president will try to unite a deeply divided society and put Asia’s fourth-biggest economy on a recovery path.
The state of the economy and fighting US President Donald Trump’s tariffs are among the hot topics for voters according to recent polls. - Bloomberg
