General election shaping up to be a tight race between ruling party and opposition alliance


Next month’s general election is shaping up to be a tight race between the ruling Saenuri Party and the liberal opposition alliance, polls and political experts said Tuesday.

And indicative of the neck-and-neck race, the rival forces are aiming for a similar number of seats ― around 130 out of 300 at stake.

“Our analysis suggests that our candidates would fare better than we expected. The mood has turned positive for us,” said Rep. Lee Hye-hoon, one of the party’s strategists for the April legislative election.

The conservative ruling camp was once thought to be headed for a crushing defeat by the main opposition Democratic United Party, amid widespread public discontent with President Lee Myung-bak and accusations of corruption within the party.

But Saenuri chairwoman Park Geun-hye has managed to regain much of the popularity that the party had lost, by nominating fresh figures and introducing reforms, party insiders said.

“At first, we thought (we would be able to win about) 90 seats, but now we’re riding a momentum and we could expect 120, or even 130 seats,” said Lee Jun-seok, a member of the party’s chief decision-making body, Supreme Council. 

Despite the improving mood, the party fears that it could lose its majority control of the parliament.

“It looks likely that the united opposition will win most seats. We’re particularly concerned about races in and around the capital,” a Saenuri insider said.

Another supreme council member, Kim Jong-in, said: “The Saenuri is unlikely to win the legislative majority.”

The DUP, on the other hand, has lowered its target for the election from a majority of 150 seats to about 130, admitting that its past mistakes had done damage to its popularity.

Internal conflict and allegations of irregularities marred the DUP’s nomination of candidates and its alliance with the far-left Unified Progressive Party.

“It looks like we have lost at least 30 seats in the past three months,” said Rep. Park Sun-sook, the party’s secretary general.

The party now aims to take control of the parliament through an alliance with the UPP, she said.

Two media polls released Tuesday also confirmed the shifting election dynamics between the rivals.

In the survey, conducted by vernacular newspaper Hankook Ilbo and pollster Korea Research, Saenuri was favored to win in all regions, except Seoul and the heavily liberal provinces of Jeolla.

Nearly 43 percent of respondents predicted that the ruling party would score the most wins against 33 percent for the Democratic United Party.

In another survey conducted by TV news channel YTN, some 26 percent of the voters polled said they would vote for Saenuri. The DUP garnered 22.4 percent, while nearly 40 percent said they were undecided.

On April 11, voters will pick 300 lawmakers for their unicameral parliament -― 246 by electoral district representation and 54 by proportional representation.

The stakes, however, go beyond parliamentary seats, as the outcome will set the tone for a bigger showdown later in the year for the presidency, pundits said.

A 13-day official campaigning period starts Thursday.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)