Independent Park beats DP runner to vie against GNP’s Na Kyung-won in Seoul mayoral race


Lawyer-turned-activist Park Won-soon was selected Monday as the unified liberal bloc candidate to compete against the Grand National Party’s Na Kyung-won in the Oct. 26 Seoul mayoral by-election.

“Now we may be confident that the opposition will defeat the GNP and the Lee Myung-bak administration,” said Park after winning the opposition-bloc ticket.

“The opposition bloc should cooperate to create a new history, based upon the past led by former Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.”

Park’s victory was determined by combined scores of the day’s electoral college vote, a jury vote after a televised forum on Friday and public polls conducted over the weekend.

He received 52.15 percent of the vote, beating the Democratic Party’s Park Young-sun with 45.57 percent.

Democratic Labor Party candidate Choi Kyu-yeop received 2.28 percent.

The lawyer took the lead in both the jury vote and public opinion polls, with 54.43 percent and 57.65 percent, respectively, over Park Young-sun’s 44.1 percent and 39.70 percent.

The turnout rate on Monday was 59.6 percent, the highest ever among those in a political party’s internal electoral college vote, reflecting the public’s soaring interest in the upcoming mayoral selection.

The race seemed to be to the DP’s advantage in the early morning hours, as elderly citizens rushed to cast their votes. The situation, however, was soon turned around as younger voters streamed in to cast ballots, upon lawyer Park’s call through Twitter and mobile messages.

Now that Park Won-soon has grabbed the ticket, it has become DP Chairman Rep. Sohn Hak-kyu’s primary task to invite him to join the party.

Though he pledged party efforts to campaign for a unified candidate, Sohn has insisted that only a DP candidate may stand a chance to win against the ruling party rival in the by-election.

“Unless the DP candidate is selected as sole candidate, we may not guarantee an opposition victory in the upcoming by-election,” said Sohn shortly before Monday’s vote.

Though Park previously refused to become a party-affiliated candidate, he recently said that as a confirmed opposition-bloc candidate, he may now consider working with the DP.

“I am fundamentally a pro-DP person, and there is no reason I should refuse to join the party, if necessary,” said the civic activist on Saturday.

Park, whether as an independent liberal or as a DP candidate, now faces against Na of the GNP and low-profile Ji Sang-wuk of the minority Liberty Forward Party.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)