South Korea: Lee of conservative minor party rules out candidacy merger with PPP's Kim

Seoul, May 22 (IANS) Lee Jun-seok, the presidential candidate of the South Korean minor conservative New Reform Party (NRP), on Thursday flatly dismissed the possibility of unifying his candidacy with that of the People Power Party (PPP)'s nominee, Kim Moon-soo.

Calls have been growing within the PPP to merge the candidacies of Kim and Lee ahead of the June 3 presidential election, in a bid to boost the conservative bloc's chances of defeating the Democratic Party (DP) front runner, Lee Jae-myung.

According to a National Barometer Survey (NBS) conducted this week, the DP's Lee secured 46 per cent support, followed by Kim with 32 per cent, while the NRP's Lee ranked third with 10 per cent, which was his first double-digit showing.

"I will run in this presidential race to the end under the name of Lee Jun-seok and the New Reform Party. We will achieve victory," Lee Jun-seok said during a press conference.

"Despite external pressure and persuasion, we remain unwavering because we have a vision for South Korea that we want to build," he added.

Kim and Lee have until Saturday to merge their candidacies to avoid having both of their names printed on the ballot. Election authorities are scheduled to print ballots on Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported.

They can still merge their candidacies by Wednesday, a day before early voting begins, although both of their names will still appear on the ballot in that case.

Compared with a week ago, Lee Jae-myung of the DP lost 3 percentage points, while Kim Moon-soo and the NRP's Lee Jun-seok gained 5 percentage points and 3 percentage points, respectively.

Kim has appealed to the NRP's Lee to merge their candidacies to better challenge the DP's Lee, but the NRP's Lee, a former leader of the PPP, has said that he has no intention of merging campaigns with Kim.

Buoyed by the latest poll, the NRP's Lee appeared to be sanguine on Thursday, saying that questions by reporters about a possible merger with Kim would be "meaningless."

Lee of the DP made his first election stop on the southern island of Jeju, where he pledged to abolish the statute of limitations for crimes of state violence.

--IANS

int/jk/dan