South Koreans Vote in Parliamentary Elections SEOUL, South Korea - President Lee Myung-bak's governing party appeared hard pressed to maintain its majority in Parliament in an election on Wednesday, according to exit polls, raising the prospect of a divided legislature and political gridlock. The governing New Frontier Party was expected to win between 131 and 147 seats, fewer than the 151 needed to form a majority in the 300-seat Parliament, according to an exit poll conducted by the Korean Broadcasting System, the country's largest TV network. The liberal opposition Democratic United Party was forecast to win between 131 and 146. Its coalition partner, the left-wing United Progressive Party, will likely win 12 to 18 seats, the exit poll said. Another exit poll conducted by MBC, another national TV network, predicted 130 to 153 seats for New Frontier and 128 to 148 for Democratic United. If Democratic United and United Progressive can dominate the legislature in a coalition, as the exit polls suggested they might, they will increase pressure on Mr. Lee to soften his policy on North Korea and modify the country's trade and military ties with the United States. All of the 300 Assembly seats were up for grabs on Wednesday - 246 elected directly from districts and 54 divided among parties according to the number of votes they win. An unusually large number of parties - 20, most of them created in the recent months - entered the fray, which came amid widespread disenchantment with the established political groups. "This election is largely a referendum on President Lee's government," said Kang Won-taek, a political scientist at Seoul National University. Its results also will have major implications for those seeking the presidency in December. Recent surveys predict the governing party will find it difficult to keep its dominance in the Assembly, where it currently holds 60 percent of the seats. They all forecast a heated race between New Frontier and the Democratic United for a plurality. Mr. Lee's government has been struggling with corruption scandals implicating his former aides and a widespread discontent over the gap between the rich and poor, and over what many considered an un-bridled expansion of conglomerates at the expense of smaller firms under the president's administration. In the run-up to Wednesday's election, further evidence emerged to support the opposition's accusations that former aides to Mr. Lee ordered illegal spying against government critics and conspired to destroy evidence when prosecutors started an investigation. Two former aides were under arrest. "This election is about punishing the Lee government," said Kim Hyun, the Democratic United spokesman. New Frontier sought to consolidate its conservative base by highlighting the nuclear and missile threats from North Korea. It depicted its liberal opponents as trying to appease North Korea and undermine South Korea's alliance with the United States by demanding the renegotiation - and even the abrogation - of a free-trade deal with Washington. Opposition parties also argued against the construction of a naval base on the southern island of Jeju, which they suspected would be used by the American Navy and raise tensions in the region. North Korea said on Wednesday that it was fueling its rocket ahead of an imminent launching to put a satellite into orbit. Seoul and Washington believe that the satellite launching is a cover for testing ballistic missile technology. Park Geun-hye took over the governing party's leadership early this year when its popularity hit bottom. She sought to revamp its image by changing its name to Saenuri, keeping her distance from the unpopular Mr. Lee and replacing 41 percent of its current lawmakers in its nominations for Wednesday's election. The party's level of support began climbing back up. Meanwhile, the opposition failed to translate the widespread antigovernment sentiments into a landslide victory. It alienated people with its own bribery scandals and vote-fixing accusations during its primaries. United Democratic's fortune depended largely on how many of the voters in their 20s through 40s, a group credited with a liberal bent, would turn out at the polls. But many moderates walked away because of the party's ideologically driven stance on the free trade agreement, which was first negotiated when the liberals were in power in 2007 and already went into effect in March. The Jeju base project was also started under the liberal government of the late President Roh Moo-hyun. The liberals" about-face "allowed the conservatives to attack them as untrustworthy," said Kim Neung-gou, the lead analyst at Polinews, an Internet Web site dedicated to covering domestic politics. During the elections, Democratic United threatened to abolish the trade deal unless Washington agreed to a renegotiation. It had previously been reluctant to go that far, and its shifting stance illustrated how much the main opposition party was beholden to the far-left United Progressive and its policies ahead of Wednesday's election and the presidential contest in December. Ahead of the parliamentary polls, the two formed a strategic coalition, selecting single candidates for each district to prevent vote-splitting. United Progressive also demands special taxes for business conglomerates and universal welfare, and tends to regard South Korea's alliance with Washington as biased in favor of the Americans. Democratic United and United Progressive remained vocal critics of Mr. Lee's hard-line policy on North Korea, maintaining that it raised tensions on the peninsula. They prefer engaging North Korea despite the North's nuclear activities. Their coalition's dominance in the Assembly would spell trouble for Mr. Lee, analysts said. They seek, for instance, to open parliamentary investigations into controversial engineering projects undertaken by Mr. Lee. "If his party loses a majority," said Mr. Kang, the political scientist, "it's going to be a tough last year in office for President Lee."