General Election Poll Shows Strong Support for Uri Party

It has been reported that constituencies support Uri Party candidates the most in the coming election on April 15 two months from now. However, the general opinion is that the Grand National Party (GNP) would be the leading party in the real election.

The Korea Research Center (KRC), a public opinion poll center, along with our company, held a telephone survey of randomly sampled respondents on February 14. The respondents represent certain quotas of region, gender, and age, and consisting of males and females who are older than 20 years old.

The survey results revealed that 21.8 percent of the respondents said that they were supporting the Uri Party. 15.5 percent for the GNP, 8.1 percent for the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), 3.5 percent for the Korea Democratic Labor Party, and 0.7 percent for the United Liberal Democrats in response to the question on which party’s candidates they were supporting.

Also, in response to a question on which party to record as the leading party in the general election, 36.0 percent of the answers said it would be the GNP, 20.9 percent the Uri Party, and 5.8 percent the MDP.

In response to the question on whether or not the President’s joining the Uri Party would affect the general election’s results, 34.5 percent answered, “It would not have any significant effects” while 16.3 percent answered, “It would have negative effects.” Therefore, more than half of the respondents gave negative or skeptical answers. Another 34.2 percent answered, “It would benefit the Uri Party in the election.”

The respondents rated the governmental management of President Roh with 53 points out of 100 with the one-year anniversary of his regime on February 25. Only 31.0 percent answered he has done “well” in the governing, while 57.8 percent said he did not do well.

On recounting what the problems of his governing were, 24.5 percent pointed out economic policies, 12.4 percent political reforms, and 9.6 percent removing corruption.

The respondents hoped that the president would focus on economic problems in his second year in power, including economic revival (50.2%) and relief of unemployment problems (17.2%).

The sample error of this survey is 95 percent and is ±2.4 percent points from the confidence interval. The questions and detailed results can be found at the poll research boards on www.donga.com.

sunny60@donga.com