Lee Jae-myung leads poll for S. Korean presidential election

SEOUL -- Lee Jae-myung, presidential candidate of South Korea's majority liberal Democratic Party, led a poll for the June 3 snap presidential election, Flower Research survey showed Friday.

Lee came out on top with a support rate of 50.5 percent, taking a big lead over Kim Moon-soo, the second-biggest conservative People Power Party's presidential candidate, who garnered 30.3 percent of support.

The human rights lawyer-turned-politician maintained his position as a presidential frontrunner in the June 3 election, triggered by the removal of former president Yoon Suk-yeol from office over his botched martial law imposition last December.

Lee lost the 2022 presidential election to Yoon by the country's narrowest margin of 0.73 percentage points.

Lee Jun-seok of the minor conservative New Reform Party took 9.1 percent of support for the upcoming presidential vote.

The Democratic Party won an approval score of 50.0 percent, while 31.8 percent supported the People Power Party, the survey showed.

The result was based on a poll of 4,012 voters conducted from Monday to Thursday. It had a plus and minus 2.2 percentage points in margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.