Opposition candidates for Seoul mayor lead ruling party rival by wide margins: poll
Oh Se-hoon, left, and Ahn Cheol-soo / Yonhap
Two high-profile opposition candidates for the upcoming Seoul mayoral election led their rival from the ruling Democratic Party (DP) by wide margins in a hypothetical two-way race for the mayoralty, a public opinion poll showed Monday.
According to the survey conducted on 1,002 voters in Seoul from Friday to Saturday by pollster Ipsos, Ahn Cheol-soo, the leader of the conservative minor People's Party, led Park Young-sun, who is running on the ticket of the DP, 52.3 percent to 35.6 percent in a hypothetical two-way race for the April 7 mayoral election.
Pitted against Park in a separate hypothetical two-way race, Oh Se-hoon, the Seoul mayoral candidate of the main opposition People Power Party, mustered 50.6 percent of the support, holding a 13.8 percentage point lead, according to the survey.
The latest Ipsos survey results showed that the support ratings for the opposition candidates gained further ground from the pollster's similar survey two weeks ago, when Ahn and Oh held leads of 7.5 percentage points and 3.7 percentages points over Park, respectively.
The latest poll, however, showed that Park led both of the opposition rivals by a slight margin in a hypothetical three-way race that included both Ahn and Oh as candidates. She had 32.9 percent of the support against Oh with 32.3 percent and Ahn with 23.2 percent.
Ahn and Oh are currently in a process to merge their mayoral candidacies to raise the chances of the opposition bloc's victory in the upcoming mayoral election.
Public opinion polls to fix the final single opposition candidate were to start on Monday, based entirely on inquiries via mobile phones and asking voters to choose which candidate is more "suitable (competitive)" for the Seoul mayoral seat.
Results of the surveys are expected to be made public Wednesday, or as early as Tuesday.
The latest Ipsos survey, commissioned by the JoongAng Ilbo daily, has a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. (Yonhap)