By Alex Jensen
SEOUL, South Korea (AA) – Liberal presidential hopeful Moon Jae-in remains South Korea’s candidate to beat as it looks increasingly likely the country will hold a snap election on May 9, according to a survey.
A left-leaning swing from recently-ousted conservative leader Park Geun-hye could signal a more accommodating approach to North Korea.
Moon was beaten to the Blue House in 2012 by Park. This time around he has been the comfortable frontrunner in polls for weeks — a Korea Research Center weekend survey released Monday showed Moon to be around 13 percentage points ahead of An Hee-jung, also from the Democratic Party.
The same pollster had Moon overcoming his closest conservative rival, acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, by a head-to-head margin of 56.4 percent to 22.8 percent.
With Moon topping most of the country by region, he could soon be in a position to test his stated goal of renewing dialogue with North Korea.
Inter-Korean ties have particularly soured over the last decade, but Moon was chief of staff to late former President Roh Moo-hyun, who in 2007 was the South’s last leader to meet with a North Korean head of state.
An election sooner rather than later would appear to favor Moon given his wave of popularity in wake of a scandal that led to Park’s expulsion by the Constitutional Court and left conservative politics damaged and divided.
The court’s decision last Friday triggered a 60-day snap election countdown and a government official revealed to Yonhap Monday that May 9 has been chosen as the “working level” date. By law the election will require a notice period of 50 days.
Hwang’s position as interim leader is under pressure because legally he must resign 30 days in advance of the election if he hopes to run for president.
He still has immediate challenges to deal with as the week began with Park’s senior secretaries offering their resignations after she vacated the Blue House the previous evening.
