Yoon leads Lee by almost 12% points in presidential race: survey

Yoon Seok-youl, the presidential nominee of the main opposition People Power Party, is leading his opponent Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party by nearly 12 percentage points in a hypothetical multicandidate race, a survey showed Monday.

Yoon garnered 43 percent support against Lee's 31.2 percent in the survey conducted on 1,009 adults nationwide on Friday and Saturday, according to the Korea Society Opinion Institute (KSOI).

Yoon's rating jumped 10.6 percentage points from the previous week, while Lee's dropped 2 percentage points.

Ahn Cheol-soo, the candidate of the minor opposition People's Party, earned 4.7 percent, followed by Sim Sang-jeung of the progressive Justice Party with 3.7 percent and former Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon with 1.4 percent.

Lee Kang-yun, head of the KSOI, said Yoon's support rose on the back of the PPP national convention Friday where he was named the presidential nominee.

"As competition heated up toward the end of the primary, interest among the support base surged, which appears to have been temporarily reflected (in the survey results)," he said.

In a hypothetical two-way matchup, Yoon beat Lee 47.3 percent to 35.2 percent.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.

The presidential election is scheduled for March 9. (Yonhap)