Click photo to enlarge
A supporter of South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-hye, of the ruling Saenuri Party, cheers during her campaign rally Tuesday in Seoul, South Korea. The sign reads, Fulfill Dream.
SEOUL, South Korea -- The liberal son of North Korean refugees faces the conservative daughter of a late dictator in South Korea's presidential election today. For all their differences, they hold similar views on the need to engage with Pyongyang and other issues.

One big reason: Voters are deeply dissatisfied with current President Lee Myung-bak, including with his hardline stance on the country's authoritarian rival to the north. Park Geun-hye, who belongs to Lee's party, has had to tack to the center in her bid to become South Korea's first woman president.

Polls showed Park and Moon Jae-in in a dead heat ahead of elections to lead Asia's fourth-largest economy and an important U.S. security bulwark in the region.

There's deepening worry about the economy and disgust over the alleged involvement of aides close to Lee in corruption scandals.

Many voters blame Lee's hardline views for encouraging North Korea to conduct nuclear and missile tests -- including Pyongyang's rocket launch last week. Some also say the chill in North-South relations led to two attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

The effort to create distance with Lee has been difficult for Park, whose popularity rests on a staunchly conservative, anti-North Korea base.

Both candidates propose pulling back from Lee's insistence that engagement with North Korea be linked to so-far-nonexistent nuclear disarmament progress by Pyongyang.


Park, however, insists on more conditions than Moon, who wants to restore large-scale government aid.

Moon is a former chief of staff to Lee's predecessor, late President Roh Moo-hyun, who championed the so-called "sunshine policy" of no-strings-attached aid for Pyongyang.

Whoever wins the presidential Blue House will set the initial tone for new North Korea policy not just in Seoul but in Washington, Beijing and Tokyo. All those governments have recently undergone an election, a change of leadership or both, and they have been waiting for a new South Korean leader before making any big decisions on North Korea policy.

A Moon election could lead to friction with Washington if new engagement with Pyongyang comes without any of the reciprocal nuclear disarmament progress that Washington demands from the North.

Moon and Park also agree on the need to fight widespread government corruption, strengthen social welfare, help small companies, close growing gaps between rich and poor, ease heavy household debt and rein in big corporations that have grown so powerful they threaten to eclipse national laws. They differ mainly in how far they want to go.

Moon wants to drastically expand welfare, while Park seeks more cautious improvement in the system, out of concern that expanding too much could hurt the economy, according to Chung Jin-young, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in South Korea.