Moon Jae-in of the biggest Minjoo Party has big advantage, poll says

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea was scheduled to hold a presidential election on Tuesday following the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye over corruption allegations.

The influence-peddling scandal embroiling Park brought down the conservative bloc, resulting in surging demand for the transfer of presidential power.

According to the latest poll released by Gallup Korea, Moon Jae-in of the biggest Minjoo Party was leading the other candidates with significant margins.

Moon, a front-runner in recent months, garnered 40 percent of support in the first week of this month. No polls conducted after May 2 can be announced.

Ahn Cheol-soo of the centrist People's Party, which splintered away from the Minjoo Party early last year, had a 20 percent support.

Ahn's support rate came closer to Moon's for the first two weeks of last month, but it turned downward as voters were disappointed at his ambiguous stance on security issues and his negative campaigning toward Moon seen in TV debates.

The obscure stance was seen as a strategy to attract conservative votes, but it seemingly resulted in both liberal and conservative voters turning their backs away from the centrist.

Ahn was followed by Hong Joon-pyo of the former ruling Liberty Korea Party, with which the impeached Park was affiliated. Hong gained 16 percent, triggering expectations that he might have surpassed Ahn's support rate in the past week.

Hong's approval rating began to rebound in the fourth week of April as his hardline foreign and security policies, and harsh criticism of the four other major rivals successfully re-collected support from older right-wing voters.

Drastic reform

The conservative politician's rebound to may not help him beat Moon who has maintained a stable upward trend in approval ratings since the corruption scandal emerged in October.

In the first half of the campaign period, public demand was strong for the drastic reform of conglomerates, called chaebol, and for the severing of long-standing collusive ties between chaebol families and politicians.

The super-high unemployment rate among youths led the younger generation to complain that they are living a difficult life, while the encouragement of irregular workers under conservative presidents for the past nine years widened an income inequality.

The record-breaking household debts were said to have been caused by the conservative governments encouraging households to purchase new homes with borrowed money amid record-low interest rates. It weighed down on consumption amid the widening income gap.

The election mood changed in the second half of the campaign period. A talking point turned into security issues amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Tensions on the peninsula tended to lead frightened voters to pick conservative candidates in the past elections.

A US aircraft carrier and warships were recently dispatched to the region, sparking worries about a possible US strike against nuclear facilities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The public mood was reversed as US President Donald Trump recently said he would be "honored" to meet DPRK leader Kim Jong-un.

Conservatives tended to denounce liberal candidates advocating a conciliatory approach to the DPRK as leftist, blind follower of the DPRK, but they no longer criticized the approach as Trump indicated a dialogue for the denuclearized Korean Peninsula.

A high voting rate in the election is expected to benefit the liberals. The early voting rate reached a whopping 26.06 percent.

Xinhua