Lee Myung-bak's landslide win in the presidential elections may have ushered in the era of the Grand National Party.
The conservative party could win more than 60 percent of the National Assembly seats in the upcoming general election, an analysis of a joint survey conducted by the JoongAng Ilbo, SBS, the East Asia Institute and Hankook Research revealed. Results of the presidential election, benefits coming from a single-chamber legislature and proportional representation were all considered.
Lee Hyeon-wu, a professor at Sogang University who helped analyze the data, pointed out that those who voted for Lee and also support the GNP amounted to 40.7 percent.
"They are the fixed votes for the GNP in the legislative elections," Lee said.
Lee also said another 11.8 percent of the people, who did not vote for Lee this time, said they would support the president-elect's political party.
The Grand Nationals will also likely earn votes in the legislative election from about 2.5 percent of the people who said they voted for Lee Hoi-chang but did not want to support his creation of a new conservative party, Lee said.
The combination of those three factors would give the GNP at least 55 percent support, Lee pointed out. The professor also said that past studies of general elections revealed that in a single-chamber system, the party that receives the most votes had an advantage by 10.5 percent in seat numbers. All in all, the GNP could get about 65 percent of the seats, he projected.
Considering that there are still three months left until the elections, the United New Democratic Party's agenda for the upcoming elections could become an important factor in swinging votes, the professor said.
Seo Hyeon-jin, a professor at Sungshin Women's University, suggested that the voters' general shift to the conservative side and their hopes for the president-elect would give the GNP a boost in the elections.
In the survey, 86.3 percent believed that Lee Myung-bak will do a good job. A total of 2,111 adults were surveyed by phone Dec. 20 to 21. The survey has a 95 percent confidence rating with a 2.1 percent margin of error.
In a projected legislative election outcome based on the presidential election, the GNP would get 208 seats and 28 seats from proportional representation.
The UNDP would get 31 and 15 seats, while Lee Hoi-chang would get four and eight seats.