SEOUL -- Lee Jae-myung, presidential candidate of South Korea's liberal Democratic Party, held a big lead of more than 10 percentage points over his archrival for the upcoming presidential election on June 3, a Flower Research survey showed Wednesday.

Lee won the support of 48.8 percent, leading Kim Moon-soo, presidential candidate of the conservative People Power Party, who garnered 37.7 percent.

The civil rights lawyer-turned-politician maintained his position as presidential frontrunner in the election, triggered by the removal of former conservative president Yoon Suk-yeol from office over his botched martial law imposition last December.

Lee lost the 2022 presidential election to Yoon by the country's narrowest margin of 0.73 percentage points.

Lee Jun-seok of the minor conservative New Reform Party, took 10.7 percent of support.

Early voting for the presidential by-election was scheduled to last for two days from Thursday.

The Democratic Party won an approval score of 47.1 percent, while 37.0 percent supported the People Power Party, the survey showed.

The result was based on a poll of 15,008 voters conducted between May 24 and May 27. It had a plus and minus 0.8 percentage points in margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.