Spy War to Predict Outcome in Presidential Election

A heated competition is going on among intelligence agencies, conglomerates and foreign embassies to collect more information to determine the outcome in the 16th presidential election.

This year`s election is a "neck and neck" race. Thus, even one day before Election Day, no one could tell for sure which of the two leading candidates would win the race, Lee Hui-change of Grand National Party, or Roh Moo-hyun of New Millennium Party. Depending on the outcome of the election, some will benefit, while others will lose a lot.

Especially, Korean conglomerates, or Chaebols, are acting sensitively. They have mobilized whatever resources they can use to collect information on the race. They, however, would not make any comments on the possible outcome.

One senior member of a Chaebol said, "The two candidates are at sharp odds with each other in their policies. No wonder Chaebols calculate what benefits they would get after the election."

An intelligence team of a Chaebol, that accurately predicted the outcome in the 15th presidential election, has reportedly submitted its prediction to the top management. To make the prediction, the team is said to have collected information from various sources including opinion polls and interview results.

The National Intelligence Service has reportedly conducted its own polls and, additionally, called the political parties and media companies to obtain their opinions on variables that could determine the result. The NIS is having a hard time, however, in making predictions, since its data based on various opinion polls including its own and those collected by its field agents do not square with each other.

The police have not conducted their own surveys. But they have daily collected and analyzed the results of unpublished polls conducted by the press and the media to make their own prediction.

In the meanwhile, embassies of major countries like the United States, Japan and China are actively moving their feelers to foretell the outcome. Candidates have different foreign policies, and North Korea`s nuclear weapons program has become a hot potato in this election.

US Embassy to Korea plans to work through all night on Election Day to report the result immediately to the United States.

Japanese Embassy has submitted its analyses of all official and unofficial opinion polls almost immediately to the Japanese government.