21st Presidential Candidate Survey Results Released

According to the 21st pre-presidential election survey by the Dong-A Ilbo, Grand National Party presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak remains in the lead with an approval rating of 41.4 percent, followed by Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party (UNDP) with 14.2 percent, independent candidate Lee Hoi-chang with 13.2 percent, Moon Kook-hyun of the Creative Korea Party (CKP) with 6.3 percent, Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) with 3.3 percent, Rhee In-je of the Democratic Party with 0.8 percent, Hur Kyung-young of the Economy Republican Party with 0.2 percent and Chung Kun-mo of the True Owner Coalition with 0.1 percent.

Compared with the 20th opinion poll conducted on November 30, the approval rating of frontrunner Lee increased 5.7 percent from 35.7 percent.

At the request of the Dong-A Ilbo, the opinion polling company Korea Research Center (KRC) conducted an opinion survey on 1,500 adults nationwide on Saturday. According to the survey, although within the poll’s margin of error, liberal candidate Chung Dong-young has taken over the runner-up position from Lee Hoi-chang for the first time in the five latest Dong-A Ilbo surveys conducted after Lee declared his bid for the presidency on November 7.

Lee Myung-bak received the highest rating of 78.7 percent when those polled were asked who was the most likely to be elected as president, followed by Chung with 5.0 percent, and Lee Hoi-chang with 3.7 percent.

When asked if they were considering changing the candidate that they were supporting, 79.4 percent of respondents said that they would continue to back the same candidate, while 19.8 percent answered that they might change the candidate.

As for party approval rating, the GNP received 50.0 percent, followed by the UNDP with 13.7 percent, the DLP with 10.6 percent, the DP with 4.5 percent, and the CKP with 3.5 percent.

Seventy seven percent of those surveyed said that they would definitely vote.

With regard to the need to enact a law prohibiting smear campaigns that recur in every presidential election by temporarily restricting parliamentary immunity, 79.5 percent said that they would support the bill, while 12.5 percent said that they are against it.

swpark@donga.com