Korea's main opposition party struggled Monday to shift the focus of this week's parliamentary elections back to a referendum on the unpopular President Lee Myung-bak and his ruling party as the races grew increasingly tight just two days before the voting.
The Democratic United Party had been forecast to win an easy victory in Wednesday's polls amid widespread perceptions that the gap between rich and poor has widened under Lee's pro-business policies and the benefits of growth in big businesses have not trickled down to the working class.
But the party has seen its once-comfortable lead over the ruling Saenuri Party closing as it fumbled the selection of its election candidates and was hit by revelations that one of its candidates made disgustingly sexist and derogatory remarks in the past.
Analysts and survey experts now say the elections are going to be a dead-heat contest.
"This is now an emergency situation. A sense of crisis is engulfing us that the past four years, which was a period of despair, could repeat," DUP leader Han Myeong-sook said during a press conference, imploring voters to punish the ruling party through the elections.
"The DUP has fallen short of people's expectations in many aspects," Han said. "But the people should win and punish the administration and the Saenuri Party ... If you cast your ballots, the people will win. Otherwise, the Lee Myung-bak administration will win."
Election experts say a higher voter turnout would benefit opposition candidates as it would mean more young voters attended the balloting. The liberal opposition party is more popular among younger voters, while older voters are more supportive of the conservative ruling party.
Han has apologized for the distasteful comments made by Kim Yong-min, the DUP's candidate for Seoul's Nowon district, in 2004 when he appeared on an Internet radio program fraught with foul language. But Kim refused to voluntarily pull out of the race, saying he would leave voters to pass judgment on him.
The ruling party has seized on the scandal to step up its attacks on the rival party.
"It amounts to the DUP attempting to pick a fight with the people," Lee Hye-hoon, a senior campaign official of the ruling party said in a radio interview, criticizing the DUP for not kicking Kim out of the party over the remarks.
The scandal turned the tables in favor of the ruling party that had been plagued by snowballing allegations that state authorities extensively spied on civilians critical of the Lee administration.
The surveillance case, which used to be a dominant election issue, is now on the back burner.
The upcoming polls are to elect a new 300-member National Assembly for a four-year term.
Of the total, 246 will be selected through direct elections and the remaining 54 proportional representation seats to be allocated to parties according to the numbers of votes they receive. Each voter is asked to cast two ballots, one for a candidate and the other for a party.
The elections take on greater significance as a test of voter sentiment ahead of December's presidential election. It is the first time in 20 years that the two big elections will take place in the same year.
The results are unlikely to have immediate effects on major domestic and foreign policies of South Korea, as President Lee will be in office until his term ends early next year. But the emergence of an opposition-controlled parliament will likely further weaken his mandate in his final year in office.
Lee's ruling party has a majority in the outgoing National Assembly.
Analysts say the parliamentary races appear to be so close that it is impossible to predict the outcome, though they agree that neither side is expected to win a majority of seats in the unicameral parliament, and that whichever party wins between 135-140 seats will likely be the No. 1 party.
Experts also say dozens of races in Seoul and surrounding areas are particularly close.
Details of voter surveys have not been available since Friday. Under Korean law, media publication of opinion polls is banned in the lead-up to the voting. (Yonhap)
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