By Kim Rahn





Moon Jae-in, presidential contender from the Democratic Party of Korea

Public support for liberal presidential contenders remains strong following Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn's decision not to run for the presidency, a poll showed Thursday.

Conservative voters seem to be at a loss, as Hwang, who was considered the strongest potential hopeful, is gone and there are no other big name contenders.

Moon Jae-in, former leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), extended his lead in the race, gaining support of 37.1 percent in the opinion poll conducted by Realmeter on 1,015 adults right after Hwang dropped his presidential ambitions Wednesday.

His support went up from 36 percent recorded right after former President Park Geun-hye was removed from office March 10. Moon has maintained the top ranking for 11 consecutive weeks.

South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung, another hopeful from the DPK, ranked second with a 16.8 percent support rating, up by 2.7 percentage points from the previous week.

Coming in third was former leader of the minor opposition People's Party Ahn Cheol-soo who garnered 12 percent, up by 1.8 percentage points. Ahn has had a close race with Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung from the DPK, whose ranking fell from third to fourth with unchanged support of 10.3 percent.

South Gyeongsang Province Governor Hong Joon-pyo's support increased the most, from 3.6 percent to 7.1 percent.

Hong plans to run for the election on the ticket of the conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP), which has been struggling in the fallout from the removal of former President Park, one of its members. He became the main beneficiary of Hwang's departure from the race as 32.4 percent of the latter's supporters said they would back Hong instead.

Conservative voters preferred Hong to other candidates from the conservative bloc, including Yoo Seong-min of the minor conservative Bareun Party, who gained 4.8 percent, up by 1.7 percentage points.

"Avid Hwang supporters were conservatives, so they moved to Hong who has shown a clear right-wing stance, rather than Yoo," an official at Opinion Live, a research center, said.

But some of the support for Hwang also shifted to liberal candidates — 14.9 percent of former Hwang supporters turned to An, and another 11.6 percent, to Ahn, the two contenders whose political inclinations are moderate compared to Moon.

In these circumstances, it seems the playing field, which had been tilted toward the liberal bloc, is tilting more: the combined support for DPK contenders surpassed 60 percent, while that for conservative candidates of the LKP and Bareun Party is less than 15 percent.

The DPK gained 51.1 percent of the support, the highest ever. The People's Party had 12.3 percent, replacing the LKP for the first time in seven weeks.

The survey had a confidence rate of 95 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.