A Korea Gallup and KBS poll conducted Sunday, gave Lee Hoi-chang of the Grand National Party the lead in the presidential race with 36 percent, followed by National Alliance 21's Chung Mong-jun with 22.8 percent, the Millennium Democratic Party's Roh Mu-hyun with 22.1 percent, Chang Se-dong with 1.6 percent, and the Democratic Labor Party's Kwon Young-gil with 1.5 percent.

Compared to research done one week ago by the Chosun Ilbo and Korea Gallup, candidate Lee’s support rose two percent, finally jumping the 35 percent "wall". Since September 9, Lee’s support has steadily increased.

Roh Mu-hyun’s support rose by 3.1 percent, making the fight for second place with Chung more intense. However, Chung's support rose 0.2 percent points, showing chances of jumping off the slide that he had been experiencing.

If Roh and Chung come together and offer a single candidacy, Lee (39.7 percent) beats Chung (36.2 percent) by 3.2 percent, and Roh (36.5 percent) by 6.5 percent points. People who thought that a coalition is desirable increased by four percent since last week to 42.3 percent while the 'undesirable' vote decreased by 2.6 percent to 36.3 percent.

In most favored single candidate to challenge Lee, Chung (42.2 percent) beat Roh (40.4 percent) by a slight margin within the sample error. On the method of selecting the single candidate, open elections (38.5 percent) came in first, followed by public opinion polls (23.8 percent). The survey was conducted on 1,055 adults nationwide on a sample error of ±3 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.

According to a television survey conducted a day before by Korea Research and MBC on 1,584 adults (sample error of ±2.5 percent), Lee's support was 35.5 percent, followed by Chung (22.7 percent) and Roh (19.5 percent).

(Hong Young-lim, @chosun.com)