Korea's opposition party overwhelmingly leads exit polls in parliamentary elections

SEOUL -- South Korea's main liberal opposition Democratic Party overwhelmingly led exit polls in parliamentary elections, a survey from three local broadcasters showed Wednesday.

The Democratic Party and its satellite party were projected to secure 178-197 seats, including the directly-contested constituency seats and the proportional representation (PR) slots, the joint exit polls from KBS, MBC and SBS showed.

The ruling conservative People Power Party and its satellite party were estimated to win 85-110 parliamentary seats.

The minor liberal Rebuilding Korea Party was forecast to snatch 12-14 seats, and the minor center-right New Reform Party was predicted to take one to four seats. The minor center-left New Future Party was estimated to win a maximum of two parliamentary seats.

The quadrennial polls for 300 members of the National Assembly were carried out at 14,259 voting stations across the Asian country to let voters cast ballots for 254 constituency seats and 46 PR slots.

The exit polls were conducted for 12 hours through 6:00 p.m. local time at about 2,000 polling stations with around 500,000 voters, in addition to some 50,000 early voters surveyed over phone.

A separate exit poll from broadcaster JTBC showed that the Democratic Party and its satellite party were estimated to garner 168-193 seats, while the People Power Party and its satellite party were projected to secure 87-111 seats.