Park Geun-hye leads Moon Jae-in by small margin in latest polls

With about a week to go before the presidential election, Park Geun-hye, standard-bearer of the ruling Saenuri Party, led Moon Jae-in, candidate of the main opposition Democratic United Party, by a small margin in polls.

The gap has narrowed, said the last polls that can be made public ahead of the Dec. 19 presidential election.

In the KBS survey of 2,500 people, Park was ahead 3.5 percentage points with 44.9 percent, while Moon's rating stood at 41.4 percent. MBN’s poll of 1,000 voters said Park led Moon by 3.4 percentage points.

Polls by JTBC and the Munwha Ilbo newspaper, however, showed Moon trailing by just 0.5-0.9 percentage point.

In the SBS poll of 3,000 people, Park led Moon by 6.8 percentage points.

The surveys were conducted from Dec. 10 through Dec. 12.

Under the Constitution, President Lee Myung-bak is banned from seeking reelection. Lee's single five-year term ends in February next year.

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com