Public opinion remains split on Ahn Cheol-soo running for president this year, but more people are calling for him to seek the country's top elected office, local pollsters said Wednesday.
According to a joint nationwide survey conducted last week by the Opinion, a domestic pollster, and the Naeil Daily, 48.3 percent of the 800 people checked said the entrepreneur-turned-professor, who is popular among young people for his "clean" image, should not take part in the Dec. 19 race, while 47.8 percent said he should run.
"The latest survey still showed there are slightly more people favoring him not taking part in the presidential election, although there seems to be a clear acceptance of him entering politics compared to the past," a pollster said.
He added that while direct comparison to past polls is hard because of different polling methods, the Naeil numbers clearly showed more people wanting Ahn to join the presidential race.
In a survey conducted in mid May by Kyunghyang Weekly and the Korea Society Opinion Institute (KSOI), 40.9 percent of people favored Ahn running for president with 49.7 percent opposing his candidacy. That poll was carried out on 1,000 voters.
KSOI chief analyst Yoon Hee-woong said past surveys showed people who supported the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) generally favoring Ahn to run for office although many wanted him to stay out of politics.
"The KSOI poll revealed 31.3 percent of DUP supporters wanting Ahn not to run, but there is a strong likelihood these people will vote for the scholar anyway if he opts to compete in the race," he claimed.
This view was shared by others who said that once Ahn formally makes a bid, there may be a rise in approval for Ahn among opposition supporters, because he is the only person who has a chance of beating ruling Saenuri Party's hopeful Rep. Park Geun-hye.
Ahn who founded AhnLab, the country's largest computer anti-virus software company and present dean of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at Seoul National University, is running neck-and-neck with Park.
Meanwhile, political watchers are trying to predict when Ahn will formally announce his bid to become the country's next president, although there remains a possibility of him opting out of the race altogether. Many have said he is already late, yet others have said he has time.
"Independent Chung Mong-joon announced his bid in mid September for the 2002 race," one observer said.
Others in the DUP said Ahn, who has never really made known his political ambitions, could make an announcement before Chuseok, one of the nation's biggest traditional holidays that falls on Sept. 30 this year. (Yonhap)