Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party faltered in polls over the weekend, while liberal rival Moon Jae-in widened his lead, the latest results show.

Though there was deviation among research firms, most public surveys released Sunday and Monday indicated that though centrist Ahn had been catching up with Moon over the past few weeks, Moon was still in the lead.

Realmeter results released Monday put Moon, the candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, at 44.8 percent in support ratings, 13.5 percentage points higher than the 31.3 percent held by Ahn of the People’s Party.

By province, Moon beat out Ahn in most regions, including Seoul, Incheon-Gyeonggi Province, Daejeon and the Chungcheong province and Busan-South Gyeongsang Province. Ahn led Moon only in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. They were closely competing in Gwangju and the Jeolla province, with Moon up 47.2 percent to 44.8 percent, within the margin of error, showed Realmeter.

The voter sentiment unveiled by Hankook Research on the previous day was similar, showing the gap between the two was 7 percentage points. Moon and Ahn marked 42.6 percent and 35.6 percent, respectively, nationwide.

Some political watchers attribute Ahn’s faltering to the inadequate apology over his wife’s alleged misconduct and to disappointment toward him in the first TV debate among many viewers.

Ahn’s wife Kim Mi-kyung is suspected of having instructed Ahn’s political aide to take care of nonpolitical matters for her, allegedly in a coercive manner. Though Ahn said his “wife has apologized (to the former aide),” watchers said his remarks sounded far from sincere.

Without using the term “pardon” or “apology,” Ahn added, “I’m of one mind with my wife (over the issue).”

Kyungnam University visiting professor Huh Seong-moo criticized Ahn for his ambiguous attitude toward the incident. “Politicians’ method of making apologies is very important in front of voters and citizens,” Huh said on a cable channel.

Meanwhile, Kantar Public and Kantar Korea’s surveys showed that Moon and Ahn are still in close competition, with Moon leading by gaps of 5.3 and 5.6 percentage points, respectively.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)