South Koreans vote in tight parliamentary election

South Koreans went to the polls on Wednesday in closely contested parliamentary elections seen as a key test of sentiment ahead of a presidential vote in December. Voting began at 6:00 am (2100 GMT Tuesday) across the country under overcast skies and scattered rain for a poll being fought mostly on economic issues. President Lee Myung-Bak's ruling conservative New Frontier Party (NFP) is struggling to preserve its parliamentary majority in the election, a prelude to what it hopes will be a second successive presidential victory. Opinion polls were banned in the week leading up to the vote but experts expect both the NFP and the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) to win 130-135 seats in the 300-member National Assembly. The NFP had 165 seats in the outgoing parliament against 89 for the centre-left DUP. The election is seen as a test for presidential hopefuls, particularly as it will be the first time for two decades that the presidential and parliamentary elections fall in the same year. Hopefuls include NFP leader Park Geun-Hye and her potential opposition rival Moon Jae-In. Lee cannot stand for a second term under constitutional term limits. While North Korea's rocket launch planned for the coming days is the main focus of international attention on the Korean peninsula, it has barely figured in the election campaign in the South, which is used to tension with its communist neighbour. Economic issues such as rising prices, high education and housing costs, job difficulties, a widening income gap and a weak welfare system have instead been the key topics in the campaign. Another major issue is a free trade agreement with the United States, which the NFP has backed but the DUP has vowed to renegotiate. This has led the ruling party to depict the DUP as socially divisive and bent on undermining a decades-old security alliance with the United States. The opposition has attacked the government for high inflation and a widening income gap, saying in an appeal to voters on Wednesday that democracy, people's livelihoods and relations with the North had all suffered under Lee. The ruling party ditched its old name of the Grand National Party ahead of the election and moved to the left in a bid to try to shake off its image as being for the rich, with promises such as improving state welfare programmes. Voter turnout is being closely watched, with a high showing, especially among young voters, seen as benefiting the centre-left opposition. Five hours after polls opened, turnout was 19.6 percent across the country, up from 19.2 percent at the same hour during the last election four years ago, election authorities said, adding that voting had so far been without incident. "I voted for the NFP for stability," a 80-year-old Cho Sun-Jae told AFP as he left a polling station in Seocho district in southern Seoul. Kim Jin-Young, a 31-year-old office worker in Seoul, said she voted for the opposition. "At least the DUP seems to be the lesser of two evils," she said after casting her ballot at Deokso district in the east of the capital. The National Assembly will include 246 directly contested seats and 54 proportional representation seats to be allocated to parties according to the total numbers of votes they receive nationwide. Each voter receives two ballots -- one to be cast for a candidate and the other for a party. Presidents serve a single five-year term and parliaments are elected for four years. Polls are due to close at 6:00 pm (0900 GMT) with official results not expected until after midnight (1500 GMT).