In this year's presidential election, only the results of polls taken until Wednesday can be disclosed to the public before election day. Gallup Korea has conducted a total of 18 polls over the past year and six months, all of which show Grand National Party presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak on top. The leading contenders in the race have turned out to be conservatives, with the combined approval ratings of Lee and former GNP chairwoman Park Geun-hye during the party primary or of Lee and independent candidate Lee Hoi-chang hovering at some 60 percent. By contrast, no candidate within the broader ruling camp has scored more than 20 percent since former prime minister Goh Kun bowed out in January.
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(From left) Presidential candidates Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party, Moon Kook-hyun, a former chief executive of Yuhan Kimberly, Rhee In-je of the Democratic Party, and Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party.
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¡ßNarrowing the field
Until mid-2005, Goh was the leading presidential hopeful, with a popularity rating at about 30 percent. He took an overwhelming lead over Park, the runner-up, and Lee Myung-bak, the second runner-up, by a margin of about 20 percent. It was in October 2005, when the restoration of the Cheonggye Stream was close to completion, that Lee Myung-bak, then mayor of the capital, began drawing public attention. With the renovation of the stream, Lee¡¯s approval ratings, which had hovered in the 10 percent range earlier, shot through the 20 percent line for the first time. During the same period, Park also won about 20 percent approval ratings in the wake of her party's victory in a by-election on Oct. 26 that year. There were now three contenders at the top: Lee, Park and Goh.
This tripartite competition lasted about a year, but from around October 2006, Lee began outdistancing his rivals. At the time, the surge in Lee's popularity was attributed to the public's desire for a leader who can address security and economic issues in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test and the real estate debacle. When his ratings plummeted to 15 percent, Goh on Jan. 16 this year threw in the towel.
¡ßLee Myung-bak vs. Park Geun-hye
For seven months from mid-January to Aug. 19 when the GNP held its primary convention, competition was fierce between Lee and Park. The gap in popularity ratings between the two contenders was as large as 30 percentage points at first. But it narrowed with time. Right after the GNP's hearing on its presidential contenders in late July, approval ratings for Lee dropped below 40 percent. Immediately before the party's primary, the gap in ratings between Lee and Park was narrowed to less than 10 percentage points.
In the end, Lee defeated Park in the primary by a narrow margin of 1.5 percentage points, or 2,452 votes. He won in polls of ordinary citizens, but lost to Park in the votes cast by party members and delegates. One of the top three contenders, former Gyeonggi Province Governor Sohn Hak-kyu, defected from the party on Mar.19 partly because of the results of polls taken at that time. After Goh disappeared from the political arena, poll agencies conducted surveys placing Sohn in the broader ruling camp. He overwhelmed all other contenders in the progressive camp at the time. Afterwards, he participated in the United New Democratic Party's primary race but lost to Chung Dong-young on Oct. 15.
¡ß Lee Hoi-chang and the BBK stock scam
After the GNP primary, Lee Myung-bak enjoyed a whopping 55 to 60 percent approval ratings, absorbing most of Park's supporters. The UNDP's Chung was poised to compete with Lee by absorbing supporters of his rivals, Sohn and former prime minister Lee Hae-chan. Then Lee Hoi-chang declared candidacy on Nov. 7, sending shockwaves across the political scene. Soon after jumping into the breach, Lee Hoi-chang's approval ratings suddenly soared to the 20 percent, putting him in second place behind Lee Myung-bak.
On Nov. 16 Kim Kyung-joon, the prime suspect in the so-called BBK stock scandal, the biggest issue in this year's presidential election campaign, was extradited to Seoul, sending Lee Myung-bak's approval ratings plummeting to the 30 percent range. But the decline in approval did not lead to an upsurge for other candidates. Instead, the number of undecided voters increased, as more people wanted to wait and see until they were convinced. This continued even after campaign officially kicked off on Nov. 27. After prosecutors cleared Lee Myung-bak of involvement in the BBK scandal on Dec. 5, his ratings shot back up to the 40 percent level, while Chung's rose a little and Lee Hoi-chang's dropped to a small extent.
At the moment, undecided voters still make up about 15 percent. And some 25 percent of voters say they may swing. If these two groups are combined, about four out of every 10 voters have not decided yet. The last variable is what decision these groups of voters will make, experts say.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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