April 15 (Bloomberg) -- South Koreans are voting today for a new parliament in balloting that may determine the fate of President Roh Moo Hyun, who is awaiting a court ruling on his impeachment by opposition lawmakers.

The pro-Roh Uri Party is trying to unseat the main opposition Grand National Party as the biggest party in the National Assembly. A Uri Party victory will send a signal to the Constitutional Court that South Koreans are opposed to the impeachment, James Rooney, president of Market Force Co., a Seoul- based adviser to foreign businesses, said in an interview.

``The court, after all, is just human beings who will read that as the will of the people,'' Rooney said. ``If the opposition Grand National Party wins, Roh's probably history.''

A Uri Party victory may lead to progress in tackling record personal debt, measures to create jobs, a revival in consumer spending, and steps to make industrial groups such as Hyundai and Samsung more transparent. The Grand Nationals have promised to ease restrictions on business and cut corporate taxes.

About 35.6 million of 48 million South Korean are eligible to vote. Balloting in the fourth presidential election since the end of military dictatorship in 1988 closes at 6 p.m., Korean time. Preliminary official results are expected by about 9 p.m. Markets are closed for the election day holiday.

Some people, like Rooney, said the outcome may go down to the wire. ``Korea is always full of surprises,'' he said. His prediction: the opposition Grand Nationals have a slight edge.

Poll Ban

Official polling is banned in the 15-day runup to elections. Surveys published before the ban showed Uri taking a majority of the 299 seats in the National Assembly. Uri's lead eroded after the party's leader, Chung Dong Young, 51, said elderly people shouldn't bother to vote. Chung apologized for the remark and stepped down as party campaign manager this week in an attempt to stanch an erosion of support that he said narrowed the gap with the Grand Nationals to as few as 10 seats from 80 last week.

Support for the Grand Nationals, which plummeted after impeachment, may have been helped by their decision to pick Park Geun Hye, the daughter of a popular former president, to lead the party. ``It was a very smart political decision,'' Rooney said.

Roh, the first president ever impeached in South Korea, has been relieved of duties pending his trial. If the impeachment is upheld, a new election must be called within 60 days. Roh's public approval rating fell to 30 percent on his first anniversary in office in February, before the impeachment. Seven in 10 South Koreans opposed the impeachment, and Uri's support doubled to 44 percent after the vote against Roh, polls showed.

Miscalculation

``The impeachment was the primary reason for a surge in support for the Uri Party,'' said Chung Sang Don, a fellow at the Sejong Research Institute. ``The opposition's ploy backfired.''

The benchmark Kospi stock index fell 2.4 percent on March 12, when Roh was impeached. Since then, the index has gained 8 percent, and is up 13 percent this year.

A Uri victory would expand Roh's mandate in international and domestic affairs, should he survive impeachment. Roh sent troops to Iraq, backed the U.S. war on terrorism and pushed for multilateral talks to dismantle North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

``Who would have thought that Roh had any chance in this parliamentary election?'' said Park Jai Chang, a professor at Sookmyung Women's University. ``He was buffeted, but he is much more formidable than he was three months ago.''

Debt Defaulters

Roh proposed a bailout for some of the 3.8 million South Koreans who defaulted on debt payments, pledged help for workers who lost their jobs when companies moved production to China and vowed to retain a 25 percent limit on industrial groups' investments in component companies to curb expansion through cross-shareholdings. The Grand National Party says it would abolish that limit.

Roh won't meet with Dick Cheney when the U.S. vice president arrives in Seoul today. Cheney, whose trip is mainly to thank South Korea for its pledge to send more troops to Iraq, will meet Prime Minister Goh Kun, 66, who is acting president while Roh awaits the court ruling.

Goh affirmed the deployment of 3,000 non-combat troops to Iraq after South Korean and Japanese nationals were taken hostage by militants last week. Seven Korean missionaries were later released unharmed. The U.S. has 37,000 troops in South Korea.

``South Korea has to consider its relations with its most powerful ally, the U.S.,'' said Park at Sookmyung Women's University. ``It would be difficult for Korea to go back on its word.''

Pro-Business

Grand National politicians, who have controlled the National Assembly for 25 of the last 30 years, are conservatives in South Korean politics. The party says it would reduce taxes on companies to as low as 10 percent from about 25 percent.

Hyundai, Samsung and other family-controlled corporations, which helped South Korea rise from the destruction of the Korean War in 1950-1953 to become the fourth-largest economy in Asia, may find it harder to expand should Uri control both the parliament and the administration. Roh has pushed for minority shareholders' rights, urged an end to industrial groups using money from profitable companies to prop up unprofitable units and cracked down accounting fraud.

``Grand Nationals are pro-business,'' said Chang Il Hyung, a senior vice president at Samsung Electronics Co., South Korea's most profitable company and biggest exporter. ``Still, their victory may increase unpredictability. Roh may be impeached and we may need to hold a new election. In business, being able to predict the future is more important than who runs the show.''

Export Growth

Economic growth has rebounded since slowing to a five-year low of 3.1 percent in 2003. The central bank last week forecast 6 percent expansion this year amid record exports of automobiles, mobile phones, ships, flat-panel televisions and other consumer electronics.

Still, consumer spending, which accounts for half the economy, was crimped by the personal-debt crisis that left one in 13 South Koreans with credit-card bills they couldn't. Consumers lured by low interest rates and credit-card giveaway programs racked up a record $13 billion in debts.

The Uri Party said it supports Roh's plan to create a government agency that would buy consumer debt from lenders and repackage it with low-interest loans and eight-year repayment schedules.

Uri was formed in September after Roh and his loyalists broke from the Millennium Democratic Party. It had 49 seats in the National Assembly going into today's election, compared with 137 held by Grand Nationals and 61 by the Millennium Democrats.

The party dominated the opposition in 144 of 243 electoral districts, according to a poll published March 31 by the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. The election also gives voters a choice in 56 National Assembly seats designated on a proportional basis, and Uri led in that category, with 39 percent or 35 seats, the poll showed. The telephone survey of 74,200 voters nationwide was conducted between March 16 and March 29, with a margin of error ranging from 5 to 7 percentage points.

``This election is a judgment on the impeachment,'' said Jang Hasung, a finance professor at Korea University in Seoul. ``There's little talk about differences in economic policies. They're just focused on wooing voters. That's a shame.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Yoolim Lee in Seoul at Yoolim@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 14, 2004 21:42 EDT