South Korea: PPP hints at ending talks with minor party's Lee on candidacy merger

Seoul, May 28 (IANS) The South Korean People Power Party (PPP) on Wednesday hinted at ending its efforts to merge candidacies with minor New Reform Party (NRP) candidate Lee Jun-seok through negotiations, saying the phase of such talks seems to be over.

PPP presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo has tried to persuade the NRP's Lee to field a single candidate to better challenge Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung, the campaign's front runner.

However, the NRP's Lee has declared he would not drop his candidacy until Election Day and the two-day early voting period for the June 3 vote will begin on Thursday.

"The candidacy unification issue no longer seems to be something that can be resolved by mechanically setting a deadline," PPP spokesperson Shin Dong-wook told reporters.

"The stage where we can resolve this through negotiations and contact has already passed," Shin said, while appealing to the NRP candidate to consider the broader national interest, Yonhap news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Democratic Party (DP) candidate Lee Jae-myung was leading his People Power Party (PPP) rival Kim Moon-soo by more than 10 percentage points, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday, a day before the two-day early voting period for the June 3 election begins.

The Realmeter survey showed support for the DP's Lee at 49.2 per cent, followed by Kim with 36.8 per cent. The margin of error was 3.1 percentage points at a 95 per cent confidence level.

Lee Jun-seok of the minor New Reform Party (NRP) was running third with 10.3 per cent support.

The DP's Lee led Kim by about 20 percentage points when the official campaign began on May 12, but the presidential race tightened as Kim and the NRP's Lee gained ground.

The Realmeter poll serves as the final indicator of voter sentiment because the publication of opinion polls will be banned from Wednesday under election law.

The DP's Lee has held a solid lead in the race that will pick a successor to former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was ousted over his failed martial law bid.

With the NRP's Lee showing no signs of merging his candidacy with Kim, political analysts expected a three-way race to continue until Election Day.

With just six days left before the June 3 election, the two leading candidates are ramping up efforts to shore up support in key battlegrounds.

Lee of the DP plans to focus on eastern Seoul on Wednesday, holding a campaign rally in the wards of Gwangjin and Seongdong.

--IANS

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