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Aproval ratings for the three leading presidential hopefuls. The green line refers to Lee Myung-bak, the red one Park Geun-hye, and the blue one Goh kun.
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Most important factor for future leader: a ’driving force’
In a recent poll, Lee Myung-bak of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) was the clear front-runner among 12 potential presidential candidates, with an approval rating of 38.9 percent.
Park Geun-hye, former leader of the GNP and a daughter of the former dictator Park Chung-hee, came in second with 13.8 percent, followed by Goh Kun, a former prime minister with no party affiliation, at 11.5 percent.
The poll, conducted by survey firm Research Plus between December 26 and 27 and commissioned by the Hankyoreh, involved phone surveys of 1,000 people aged over 19. The margin of error was ± 3.1 percentage points.
According to Research Plus, Lee, who served as mayor of Seoul until June 2006, had been neck-and-neck with Park on September 13, with Lee’s approval rating at 22.2 percent and Park’s at 22.5 percent. However, Lee saw his approval ratings jump in recent months. On October 11, Lee’s rating was 30.2 percent, while the approval ratings of Park and Goh declined.
During the latest poll, the GNP’s presidential candidate from the last election, Lee Hoi-chang, had a 3.4 percent approval rating, followed by former Gyeonggi provincial governor and GNP member Sohn Hak-kyu at 2.1 percent, former unification minister Chung Dong-young of the ruling Uri Party with 1.3 percent, and unaffiliated former Seoul National University president Chung Un-chan with 1.0 percent. Other possible candidates in the poll were left-leaning Democratic Labor Party (DLP) lawmaker Kwon Young-ghil at 0.8 percent, DLP lawmaker Roh Hoe-chan at 0.7 percent, Uri Party leader Kim Geun-tae with 0.4 percent, GNP lawmaker Won Hee-ryong with 0.3 percent, and unaffiliated lawyer Park Won-soon with 0.1 percent. The remaining 28.5 percent polled refused to pick a candidate. By party, the GNP held a 47.5 percent approval rating, followed by the Uri Party’s 13.6 percent, the DLP’s 8.7 percent, and the Democratic Party’s 6.1 percent. Asked what the most important factor is for the country’s next president, 44.5 percent of respondents said that he or she should have a ‘driving force,’ followed by stability (18.9 percent), morality (14.4 percent) and a reformist mindset (8.5 percent). In October 2002, two months ahead of the presidential election that year, 35.7 percent of those polled picked morality as the most important factor for a next president. Of the top three presidential candidates, former Seoul mayor Lee had a 75.4 percent rating in terms of possession of a ‘driving force,’ followed by Park with 40.7 percent and Goh with 24 percent. Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
