South Korea’s presidential race narrowed as Ahn Cheol-soo, an advocate of a tougher stance against North Korea, surged in polling to be nearly level with left-leaning front-runner Moon Jae-in.
Ahead of the May 9 election, support for Ahn of the centrist People’s Party jumped from 19 percent a week ago to 35 percent, a Gallup Korea survey showed yesterday.
Moon, of the Democratic Party of Korea, garnered 38 percent support, up from 31 percent, the results showed.
The poll was the first taken by Gallup Korea since all major parties chose their candidates for an election triggered by last month’s ouster of former South Korean president Park Geun-hye amid a graft scandal.
The next leader is to face multiple tasks, including addressing the North Korean nuclear threat, Chinese retaliation over the deployment of the US’ Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system and reform of family-run conglomerates that contributed to Park’s downfall.
Running third in the poll was Hong Joon-pyo of Park’s conservative Liberty Korea Party. Support for Hong climbed to 7 percent support, up from 4 percent a week earlier, the data showed.
Ahn, who has leaped into contention from a single-digit rating early last month, is probably attracting conservative voters, as well as supporters of some Democratic Party candidates who lost the nomination to Moon, political scientist Park Won-ho said.
“Some conservative voters are clearly shifting to Ahn simply because they don’t want Moon as president, while other conservatives actually like Ahn, because he tells them what they want to hear, like his position on THAAD,” said Park Won-ho, a Seoul National University professor who specializes in voting behavior and research methods.
Ahn, 55, on Thursday said the next president should continue to allow the US to install THAAD on South Korean soil.
The millionaire founder of an anti-virus software start-up said he would name former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon as a special envoy to enlist other nations against the threat from North Korea, which test-fired another ballistic missile this week.
Moon, 64, who was runner-up to Park in 2012, favors a softer line on North Korea and has said he would review the decision to deploy THAAD.
He has fended off resurfaced accusations he is aligned with the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by touting his background as a special forces veteran in South Korea’s military.
Moon has also vowed to clean up what he calls “deep-rooted evil” in society, such as the cozy ties between family-run business groups and successive governments.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS