Conservative candidate Lee Myung-bak looks set to win South Korea's presidency with a landslide in Wednesday's election - the last polls before the ballot gave him ratings of more than 40 per cent, while liberal rival Chung Dong-young mustered only 15-17 per cent.
Mr Lee has chosen to fight the election for the Grand National Party on the economic battlefront. 'Economy First!' his website cries, and a popular advert shows him at a street market, listening to an elderly woman telling him to prioritise the economy. Born into a poor family, Mr Lee worked in markets to put himself through university.
Other ads stress his 'can do' track record and successes, notably as CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction in the 1980s and as mayor of Seoul from 2002 until this year.
Ironically, the economy has performed well under President Roh Moo-hyun, with gross domestic product growing at an average of about 4.5 per cent a year. But this is not the impression one gets from the powerful conservative press. The top three dailies, all with circulations of more than 2.5 million, have been rabidly anti-Roh.
The president has even complained publicly that foreign investors had benefited more from the surging stocks - the main index has tripled under Mr Roh's five-year administration - than have Koreans, who had been dissuaded from investing by doomsaying media.
However, during Mr Roh's administration, taxes have risen across the board, and the government has been unable to rein in real-estate speculation in hot spots such as southern Seoul.
'I think you have got one of those situations where the macroeconomy has not performed badly, but with increased taxation, and one or two ill-conceived policies, people don't feel that their lives have got better,' said Mike Breen, author of The Koreans. 'So they are voting for change.'