Lee is favored in presidential poll

Lee Hoi-chang, president of the opposition Grand National Party, would be the presidential choice of Koreans if voting took place now in match-ups between Mr. Lee and the most likely candidates of the Millennium Democratic Party, an opinion poll has found.

The JoongAng Ilbo spoke to 1,086 adults age 20 and older in a telephone survey across the country on Tuesday. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points, with confidence level of 95 percent.

In an imaginary presidential election between Mr. Lee and the Millennium Democrats' Rhee In-je, 49.5 percent of the surveyed people supported Mr. Lee, while 40.4 percent said they would vote for Mr. Rhee. In a hypothetical run against Noh Mu-hyun, a standing adviser to the ruling party, Mr. Lee polled 52.3 percent and Mr. Noh 37.4 percent.

Between Mr. Lee and Hahn Hwa-kap, a ruling party lawmaker, 61 percent supported Mr. Lee, while 20.4 percent voted for the ruling party's candidate. And against still another Millennium Democrat, Kim Keun-tae, Mr. Lee won 61.3 percent support.

If three candidates ?Mr. Lee, Mr. Rhee and Kim Jong-pil, leader of the United Liberal Democrats ?ran for presidency now, 49 percent would support Mr. Lee 37.3 percent Mr. Rhee and just 6 percent Mr. Kim. In this case, the polling score of Mr. Lee remained unchanged while Mr. Kim grabbed some of the votes that would go to Mr. Rhee in a two-man race.

But Mr. Rhee turned the tables when matched against Park Geun-hye, a vice president of the Grand National Party. His support rose to 49.8 percent, while she polled 39.7 percent.

Regarding President Kim Dae-jung's performance, 32.6 percent of the respondents gave negative ratings ?poor or terrible ?while 21.7 percent gave positive ratings.

Only 13.9 percent of the survey rated Lee Hoi-chang's overall performance as president of the Grand National Party as good, while 35.3 percent called it poor.

More than half, 58.5 percent, said the Grand National Party, the largest party in the National Assembly, is performing poorly as an opposition; 38.2 percent gave it a "good" rating. The poll showed 30.1 percent support for the Grand National Party, 22.1 percent for the Millennium Democrats and 2.7 percent for the United Liberal Democrats.

Of those polled, 57.3 percent said the local elections scheduled on June 13, 2002, should be advanced by one month to be held before the soccer World Cup. The sports event takes place between May 31 and June 30, 2002.

by Ahn Boo-keun