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With the presidential election less than two months away, the Grand National Party's Lee Myung-bak is maintaining a commanding lead in the latest public opinion poll conducted by the JoongAng Ilbo, SBS, East Asia Institute, and Hankook Research.

Lee led the survey with 54.2 percent, followed by United New Democratic Party candidate Chung Dong-young with 15.3 percent. Chung, whose support stood at just 2.6 percent in August, not surprisingly saw his ratings grow after he became the UNDP’s candidate with his win in the party primary this month.

In August, before the GNP primary, Lee’s support stood at 38.4 percent, while unsuccessful GNP challenger Park Geun-hye was second with 25.3 percent.

Independent candidate Moon Kook-hyun, the Democratic Labor Party’s Kwon Young-ghil and Rhee In-je of the Democratic Party all garnered single-digit support, with Moon leading the group of also-rans with 7.2 percent.

A total of 2,524 potential voters were surveyed last week, with 17.4 percent saying they were still undecided.

Chung Doo-un, a Grand National Party lawmaker in charge of strategic planning for the Lee campaign, said yesterday that the party was hoping to win the election by a 10-percent margin.

"If you consider that there will be a consolidation of candidates against Lee Myung-bak, we plan to maintain his support at 45 percent while containing the support of another candidate at 35 percent and get the rest of our support from the 20 percent of free-floating voters," said Chung.

The poll also asked about the country’s management under President Roh Moo-hyun. He was given a 38 percent approval rating this time around, up from 34.4 percent in August. The number of those who gave Roh a thumbs down went down from 64.6 percent to 61.6 percent.