A new poll Monday found ruling party leader Park Geun-hye is leading her possible rival Ahn Cheol-soo, a prominent software entrepreneur, for the December presidential election.
The telephone survey released by Realmeter, a polling firm in Seoul, found 47.9 percent of respondents supported Park of the Saenuri Party, while 44.8 percent backed Ahn.
It marked the first time that Park, a daughter of late President Park Chung-hee, led Ahn in a regular weekly survey since early February, when Ahn had 51.5 percent of support against Park's 40 percent, according to Realmeter.
The polling firm attributed Park's lead to her party's upset victory in the parliamentary elections last week. The ruling party won an outright majority of the total 300 seats up for grabs, with 152 seats against the main opposition Democratic United Party's 127 seats, boosting her standing as a presidential candidate in December.
The survey was conducted on 1,500 adults on Thursday and Friday after the parliamentary elections on Wednesday. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.53 percentage points.
The survey results came as a local media outlet reported Ahn has decided to run for the presidential election and met an unidentified opposition politician to seek support for his bid.
Ahn, a former medical doctor who gained fame in the 1990s after establishing the anti-virus software firm, is widely popular, especially among young Koreans, due largely to his clean and upright image. He is now dean of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at Seoul National University.
Meanwhile, the survey also found Park had 51.6 percent support against Moon Jae-in's 38.5 percent in a possible two-way presidential race. Moon served as chief of staff for former President Roh Moo-hyun, who killed himself in 2009 amid a widening corruption probe involving his family. (Yonhap)