South Korea's presidential race: Three-legged race ALL three main candidates for South Korea's presidential election on December 19th promise similar things: curbing the power of the chaebol, the country's industrial conglomerates; expanding the welfare state; and securing more peaceful relations with North Korea. "Economic democratisation" is the trendy slogan that all three candidates seem to embrace. Yet guessing whose warm and fuzzy pledges will win over the public remains a complicated game. The favourite, Park Geun-hye, is an unlikely reformer. She is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, the military strongman responsible for kick-starting South Korea's chaebol-driven race for growth in the 1960s and 1970s. Her Saenuri Party is naturally conservative and in favour of big business. Some in the party are appalled at her soft-edged utterances, and feud with her adviser, Kim Jong-in, whose sobriquet, "the father of economic democratisation," does not sound any better in Korean. But Ms Park's spokeswoman insists there is no turning back. The opposition candidate is Moon Jae-in of the left-leaning Democratic United Party (DUP). Mr Moon is a human-rights lawyer whom the Park Chung-hee regime sent to jail. A progressive, he has credentials for change. But he needs to emerge from the long shadow of a former president, the late Roh Moo-hyun. The two practised law together, and Mr Moon later served as Roh's chief-of-staff. Roh killed himself in 2009, against a backdrop of rising corruption allegations. For better and for worse, the public strongly associates Mr Moon with his old friend. The DUP is divided over the Roh legacy. A widespread dislike of mainstream parties has allowed a 50-year-old doctor and software entrepreneur, Ahn Chul-soo, to emerge as an independent third candidate. A political neophyte, Mr Ahn is short on concrete policies or heavyweight backing. But he is decent, telegenic and appeals to young Koreans as a businessman who made his own success. He combines an anti-chaebol message with a strong dose of progressivism. If both Mr Moon and Mr Ahn stay in the race, they will split the progressives" vote, handing easy victory to Ms Park. The assumption is that one of the two will drop out in support of the other. A group of more than 100 novelists, film directors and other cultural figures has signed an open letter urging them to do just that. Yet big egos are too much in play to be sure of one of the two candidates sacrificing his chances to help the other. Owing the political establishment nothing, Mr Ahn has little to lose by staying in. Besides, his poll ratings have been higher than Mr Moon's. But for Mr Moon not to run would be an awful admission of the DUP's irrelevance - and that his political experience counted for nothing. To get the ball rolling in favour of merging the campaigns, the DUP suggested forming a joint exploratory committee. Mr Moon speaks of a dramatically beefed-up role for the prime minister, a job he hopes Mr Ahn would accept. It is still possible that Mr Ahn will bend, but that does not guarantee victory for the progressives against Ms Park. One-fifth of Mr Ahn's supporters say they would never vote for Mr Moon (and vice versa). Meanwhile, thanks to a rapidly ageing population, the number of voters over 50 exceeds those under 40 for the first time - and older voters favour Ms Park. To succeed, her two rivals would need to fire up young voters. Even if they find the will to combine, they have precious little time.