Liberal independent Ahn Cheol-soo overtook ruling party presidential candidate Park Geun-hye in a public poll released Friday, after announcing his much anticipated presidential bid earlier this week.
Ahn, the founder of South Korea's largest anti-virus software firm, AhnLab, threw his hat into the ring Wednesday, ending months of speculation and posing a serious challenge to the conservative Saenuri Party candidate.
The 50-year-old former medical doctor and professor is highly popular especially among younger South Koreans due largely to his clean and upright image.
In a survey by Realmeter, Ahn's approval rating hit 49.9 percent, ahead of Park's 44 percent, in a hypothetical head-to-head showdown. The poll was conducted on 1,500 voters between Wednesday and Thursday, with a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Before announcing his presidential bid, Ahn's rating had stood at 44.5 percent, slightly behind Park's 44.7 percent, in an earlier survey conducted between Monday and Tuesday.
The two have run neck-and-neck in public polls for months.
"It appears that the effect of the announcement, Ahn's message that he will continue politics, and his visit to all graves of past presidents at the National Cemetery absorbed the political moderates and those not affiliated with any particular party," Lee Taek-soo, the head of Realmeter, said.
Unlike his rival from the main opposition Democratic United Party, Moon Jae-in, who visited only the grave of liberal President Kim Dae-jung, Ahn visited the graves of both liberal and conservative past presidents on Thursday.
The move was seen as a demonstration of his pledge to achieve national unity.
In a hypothetical three-way race, Ahn gained 5.9 percentage points from last week's average to record 32.6 percent, while Park's rating fell 5.1 percentage points to 35.9 percent and Moon's rating rose slightly to 19.7 percent, according to Realmeter. (Yonhap)