Can Rep. Park hold lead?

Ruling Saenuri Party candidate Park Geun-hye, left, and Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party smile during their respective rallies in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, and Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday.
/ Yonhap

Moon chasing but needs major boost to come from behind

By Kim Tong-hyung

Conservative favorite Park Geun-hye and opposition rival Moon Jae-in attacked one another in frenzied campaigning Tuesday as the presidential election enters its closing stages.

With a week left until the Dec. 19 vote, polls indicate to a tightening battle for Cheong Wa Dae: Park, daughter of late dictator Park Chung-hee and representing Saenuri Party's hopes of retaining the country's most powerful office, holds to a narrowing lead nationally and watches the competition in battleground regions turn into a dead heat.

Moon, the Democratic Untied Party (DUP) nominee, received a crucial endorsement from former independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo recently and was able to follow up the enthusiasm bump with a spirited performance in the second presidential debate Monday night.

A survey of 2,000 adults jointly conducted by JTBC television and pollster Realmeter through Sunday and Monday has Park leading Moon 49.9 percent to 44.8 percent.

However, the 5.1 percent gap was visibly smaller than the 6.8 percent difference measured Saturday.

A separate poll by news website Oh My News and Research View conducted Monday has the competition on a knife edge, with Park barely ahead with a 48.1 percent support compared to Moon's 46.7 percent.

"The Roh Moo-hyun government wasted a period of prosperity in the world economy by indulging in ideological debates and power struggles, leading to the erosion in working-class living standards. The Lee Myung-bak government put growth before everything and failed to make lives better. I will not be a leader who will repeat the mistakes of previous governments," Park said at a rally in Seogwipo, Jeju Island.

She was particularly critical about Moon's plans to form a coalition government should he come to office to ensure that former independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo and his supporters get their share of decision-making powers.

"If he wins the election, Moon plans to break apart the DUP and build a new party. This would be repeating the mistake of Roh, who dissolved the Democratic Party to create the Uri Party. Political maneuvering will again be pushed to the front burner at the expense of real working-class issues," she said.

Moon emerged as the political heir of the late Roh, the last DUP alumni to make it to Cheong Wa Dae, after the former president leaped to his death in 2009.

With his sidekick Ahn courting young voters at university campuses and leisure districts in Seoul, Moon spent the day gliding across eight Gyeonggi Province towns, including Goyang, Seongnam, Uijeongbu and Anyang, in a desperate hunt for support. His comments felt similar to Park's, but only the exact opposite.

"The election has boiled down to a showdown between the national alliance dedicated to improving working-class living standards and the privileged alliance, which destroyed working-class living ... The choice is up to you," Moon said at a rally in Uijeongbu.

"The tax cuts for the wealthy were measured at an astronomical 100 trillion won during the five years of the Lee Myung-bak government. The money spent on the four rivers restoration project was 22 trillion won ... This is the same money that could create 6 million jobs with annual pay of 20 million won ... That money should have been used for creating jobs and improving welfare, but instead was used to make rich people richer or was tossed to the bottoms of rivers just for the sake of it."

Moon, widely perceived to have lost the first debate on Dec. 4, launched a fight-back against Park in the second encounter, jabbing his opponent over jobs and the economy.

Park countered by accusing Moon of fanning anti-business sentiment with his reform plans for large businesses and attempting to penalize the rich with tax hikes. However, she looked rather shaky in her exchanges with Moon over healthcare issues and at one point appeared confused about her own plans.

The DUP also accused Park of peaking into an Apple iPad during the discussions when the rules of debate forbid candidates to use nothing more than their prepared notes.

While the race is still Park's to lose, DUP officials were expressing confidence that Moon's comeback in the second debate and the energy injected by Ahn would be enough to pull an upset on polling day. Moon's camp was also buoyed by an endorsement from former Prime Minister Chung Un-chan, who held key posts in both the Roh and Lee governments.

A poll by Seoul Newspaper taken after the presidential debate had more than 50 percent of the respondents rating Moon's performance over Park's. About 37 percent of the respondents thought Park did better.

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