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Moon Jae-in, the front-runner presidential hopeful from the Democratic Party, remained the most favored contender for the May 9 election, a poll showed Thursday, with South Gyeongsang Gov. Hong Joon-pyo rising as a strong conservative figure after the acting president decided not to enter the race.
Moon posted an approval rating of 37.1 percent in the survey conducted Wednesday by Realmeter right after Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn declared a decision not to run for president.
Moon's rating rose 2 percentage points from the previous week, it noted.
South Chungcheong Gov. An Hee-jung, also from the top liberal party followed with 16.8 percent, trailed by Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party with 12 percent and Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party with 10.3 percent.
Hong from the right-wing Liberty Korea Party, who plans to announce his presidential ambitions later this week, shot up to become the most favored conservative contender at 7.1 percent, up 3.5 percentage points from a week earlier.
Rep. Yoo Seong-min and Gyeonggi Gov. Nam Kyung-pil, both from the conservative Bareun Party, posted 4.8 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.
The pollster said Hong raked in 32.4 percent of the voters who earlier rooted for Hwang. An, who is considered relatively conservative compared with other liberal contenders, won 14.9 percent of the acting president's supporters.
The conservative bloc has been struggling to find a suitable candidate as the ouster of Park Geun-hye from the presidential office over a corruption scandal is expected to induce more voters to turn to the liberal circle.
Pundits said the conservative bloc may continue to face troubles in setting its strategies for the election, especially with the two conservative parties -- the Liberty Korea Party and the Bareun Party -- at odds over many issues.
By party, the Democratic Party posted an all-time high figure of 51.1 percent, apparently helped by Hwang's exit from the poll.
The splinter People's Party posted 12.3 percent, beating the Liberty Korea Party for the first time in seven weeks.
The Liberty Korea Party, on the other hand, only managed to post 11.7 percent, while the Bareun Party, which spun off from the former ruling party, held an approval rating of 4.7 percent.
The poll was conducted on 1,015 South Koreans with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. (Yonhap)
