Former presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung won the latest rounds of voting in an ongoing race for the Democratic Party leadership on Sunday, inching closer to the helm of the main opposition party.

Lee won some 79 percent of the votes by dues-paying DP members in South Jeolla Province and the metropolitan city of Gwangju in the region.

Lee handily beat Park Yong-jin, who earned just over 20 percent of the votes in South Jeolla and Gwangju on Sunday.

Lee earlier topped DP votes in North Jeolla, North and South Chungcheong provinces, plus the central administrative hub of Sejong and neighboring Daejeon. Those results followed overwhelming victories in Gangwon Province, the southeastern city of Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province, the southern resort island of Jeju and Incheon, just west of Seoul.

The latest results pushed Lee's accumulated total to 78.35 percent, while Park has won 21.65 percent of the votes so far.

Lee, who lost to Yoon Suk-yeol in the presidential election in March, bounced back to win a parliamentary seat in Incheon at June's local elections.

The DP is set to hold a national convention next Sunday, where it will combine the votes of party members and the results of opinion surveys to determine its next leader. (Yonhap)