`40% of SNU Students Are Conservative
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Four out of 10 Seoul National University (SNU) students consider themselves conservative, according to a recent survey.
In the poll conducted on 2,078 students at seven colleges by their school newspapers last month, 40.5 percent said they incline toward conservatism.
The average ratio of the seven schools _ SNU, Korea, Yonsei, Sungkyunkwan, Ewha Womans, Hanyang, and ChungAng universities _ was 35.1 percent.
For SNU, the ratio of students who consider themselves conservative has been increasing, with 13.2 percent in 2000, 17.2 percent in 2002, 27.6 percent in 2005 and 40.5 percent this year.
Some 33 percent of the surveyed students said their ideology inclines toward progressivism. However, for SNU, the ratio was 30.9 percent, a decrease from 2005's 31.2 percent. It is the first time that SNU students leaning toward conservatism outnumber those who identify more with toward progressivism.
More than 47 percent of students from the seven schools said they would vote for the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) candidate Lee Myung-bak, followed by 11.8 percent for Moon Kook-hyun of the Creative Korea Party, 7.5 percent for Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party, and 6.9 percent for Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party.
The survey did not include independent candidate Lee Hoi-chang, as it was conducted before he ran for the presidential election.
Some 84 percent of those surveyed said they would cast a vote at the election, while 284 students said they would not. When asked why, 40.1 percent of the 284 said because they did not support any of the candidates; 25.7 percent said, voting was a nuisance; 15.5 percent said, their votes were not likely to influence the election result; and 11.3 percent said, they had antipathy to Korean politics.
When evaluating the five years of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, 65.4 percent said Roh had not done well. Students said the next president should focus on improving the economy, and the most important factor in selecting a candidate was his political creed and will to put it into practice.