Opposition Seoul mayoral candidate overwhelmingly leads ruling party rival: poll

Oh Se-hoon, the Seoul mayoral candidate of the main opposition People Power Party, smiles during a media conference Tuesday. A poll revealed Wednesday shows that he leads his rival from the ruling Democratic Party Park Young-sun by a margin of nearly 20 percentage points. Yonhap

Oh Se-hoon, the opposition Seoul mayoral candidate, led his rival from the ruling Democratic Party (DP) Park Young-sun by an overwhelming margin of nearly 20 percentage points, the latest public opinion poll showed Wednesday.

According to the survey conducted on 1,042 voters in Seoul from Monday-Tuesday by Realmeter, 48.9 percent of the respondents said they will vote for Oh if he runs in the April 7 Seoul mayoral by-election as a single candidate for the opposition bloc. Another 29.2 percent said they will opt for Park.

While the two-day opinion poll was in progress, Oh, running on the ticket of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), was selected Tuesday as the single unified Seoul mayoral candidate for the broader opposition bloc, beating Ahn Cheol-soo of the conservative minor People's Party (PP) in a bipartisan primary.

Of those surveyed by Realmeter, an absolute majority of 93.6 percent said they are planning to go cast their ballots on election day.

Park Young-sun / Yonhap

Among those who responded they will "definitely" go cast ballots, 52.5 percent threw their support behind Oh while Park mustered 29.6 percent of the support, according to the survey results.

The support rating for the biggest conservative PPP was at 32.7 percent, followed by the DP with 23.5 percent and the PP with 13.4 percent.

A total of 59.2 percent of the respondents said the meaning of the upcoming by-election rests on "passing a judgment on the (Moon Jae-in) government and the ruling party."

Another 32.9 percent responded that the meaning of the election should be on maintaining "the stable management of state affairs," the survey showed.

Nearly 42 percent of the respondents pinpointed "stabilizing the housing market" as the main issue facing the next Seoul mayor, followed by "reviving the people's livelihood and creating jobs," cited by 27.4 percent.

The opinion poll, commissioned by cable news channel YTN and radio broadcaster TBS, has a 95 percent confidence level, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. (Yonhap)