SEOUL, May 26 (Yonhap/APP): A three-way presidential race tightened as Democratic Party (DP) candidate Lee Jae-myung lost some of his lead in the latest opinion polls, while People Power Party (PPP) candidate Kim Moon-soo gained ground.
With the election just eight days away, opinion polls have still put Lee in front, but the gap between Lee and Kim had narrowed, while Lee Jun-seok of the minor New Reform Party (NRP) garnered his double-digit support.
A Realmeter survey released Saturday showed support for the DP’s Lee at 46.6 percent, followed by Kim with 37.6 percent and the NRP’s Lee with 10.4 percent. The margin of error was 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.
According to a Realmeter survey released on May 11, a day before the official campaign began, the DP’s Lee garnered 52.1 percent support against Kim’s 31.1 percent in the hypothetical three-way race that also included the NRP’s Lee, who earned 6.3 percent.
The NRP’s Lee, who once served as a leader of the PPP, has declared he would not drop his candidacy until Election Day, but speculation has persisted about a possible merger between the NRP candidate and Kim.
Attention is focusing on whether Kim and the NRP’s Lee may merge their candidacies before Thursday, when early voting begins.
Three days before early voting started, the PPP ramped up efforts to persuade the NRP’s Lee to merge candidacies, but the NRP candidate continued to shrug off such an appeal on Monday.
“If there is unification, it would only be achieved if their (PPP) candidate drops out,” the NRP’s Lee said in a text message to party members. “From the beginning, we made it clear that we intend to finish this race and win.”
The DP’s Lee has been the campaign’s front-runner as the election is being held to pick a successor to former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was ousted over his failed martial law bid.