Candidates for ruling party chief push for last-minute support

By Shim Sun-ah
SEOUL, July 13 (Yonhap) -- With only one day left before the Grand National Party
(GNP)'s leadership race, candidates made their final pitch for support from party
representatives on Tuesday, vowing to revamp the crisis-ridden ruling party
reeling from last month's local elections.
The GNP is set to hold a national convention Wednesday to select new leaders
after suffering a crushing defeat in the June 2 elections for local government
chiefs. The defeat led to the massive resignation of party leaders, including
chairman Chung Mong-joon, to take responsibility.
Five members of the party's Supreme Council will be elected, including a spot
reserved for a woman candidate. The individual who wins the most votes will be
elected chairperson for the party.
The race is expected to be close and complicated among candidates from as many as
five different factions -- rival factions loyal to President Lee Myung-bak and
Park Geun-hye, former party chairwoman, as well as moderates, reform-oriented and
younger, junior members.
Park, daughter of former President Park Chung-hee, is one of the strongest
candidates for the 2012 presidential election.
At present, 11 candidates are vying for the party's top seat with Reps. Ahn
Sang-soo and Hong Joon-pyo among the strongest. Both are four-term lawmakers who
served as the party's floor leader and are key members of the party's faction
loyal to President Lee.
They are closely followed by two-term lawmaker Chung Doo-un, who beat rival
lawmaker Nam Kyung-pil Sunday to grab the united candidate ticket for
reform-oriented candidates in the race.
Drawing attention is whether Nam's supporters will vote for Chung as anticipated
or other candidates.
Members of the pro-Park faction will decide which of the four candidates from the
group to send mustered support. Reps. Suh Byung-soo, Lee Sung-hun, Han Sun-kyo
and Lee Hye-hoon are still working to field a single candidate.
Na Kyung-won, a former party spokeswoman who is from the moderate faction, Chung
Mi-kyung and Lee Hye-hoon are competing for the female slot in the Supreme
Council.
The result will be based on a ballot of about 9,000 party delegates (70 percent)
and an opinion poll of ordinary citizens who have no party membership (30
percent).
Political watchers say the election may produce an unexpected result as each
party delegate casts two votes. One of them is expected to reflect the decision
of their faction leader, but the other their own choice, they said.
The GNP has been under pressure to reform after the defeat in the June 2 local
elections, whose results were seen as a mid-term test for the Lee Myung-bak
administration and a presage of the parliamentary and presidential races in 2012.
The GNP won only six of the 16 gubernatorial and mayoral races while the liberal
rival Democratic Party (DP) garnered seven.
Candidates have had three rounds of TV debates and a joint campaign tour around
the country since the official campaigning began on July 5. The last TV debate is
scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
sshim@yna.co.kr
(END)

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