By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter The pro-government Uri Party will merge with a party created Sunday by deserters from the Uri Party and the Centrist United Democratic Party in mid-August, a senior party official said Tuesday. ``The Uri Party plans to complete the merger soon. We hope the new party leaders will hurry up to form the coalition,'' said Rep. Chang Young-dal, floor leader of the Uri Party. Rep. Oh Young-sik of the Uri Party told reporters that his party needs to decide whether to merge with the liberal party no later than Aug. 20. Uri leaders are considering holding a party convention between Aug. 16 and 18 to announce the merger, he added. However, some presidential hopefuls, who are loyal to President Roh Moo-hyun, oppose the merger, insisting the Uri Party should merge with the liberal party on an equal footing. They claimed that the Uri Party should pick its presidential candidate through its own primary race and then consider joining hands with the upstart party unless they are accepted as an equal partner. Some others are seeking to file a lawsuit against the proposed merger. If the court upholds it, the Uri Party will not be able to hold the party convention, party sources said. In a related development, former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook, a presidential hopeful of the Uri Party, proposed that the party should select a single candidate to run in the Dec. 19 election. Han, 63, insisted that the embattled party could win the crucial election by picking a sole candidate who has liberal inclinations. Her proposal is aimed at centralizing support that is currently divided among eight contenders from the Uri Party, sources said. ``Now is the time to become one. We cannot win the presidential race if we compete against each other,'' she said in a press conference at the National Assembly. ``We should select a single candidate to defeat the standard-bearer of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP).'' She claimed that a survey of public support was the best method to single out the candidate. Presidential aspirants from the Uri Party should meet as soon as possible to decide on the date and rules to pick the candidate, she said. So far, eight Uri politicians who are known as loyalists to President Roh Moo-hyun have announced their presidential bids but their support rates hover at around one percent in surveys. They include former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan, former Uri Chairman Chung Dong-young and former Minister of Health and Welfare Rhyu Si-min. However, it may be difficult to choose a single candidate because some Uri campaign workers have expressed negative views about the matter. Rep. Yang Seoun-jo who belongs to supporters of Lee said it would be difficult for the presidential hopefuls to reach an agreement on the matter of selecting a single candidate. Besides, the contenders differ over ways to achieve a grand coalition of liberal groups, which will likely ignite internal discord, the sources said. Han and Rhyu have insisted that the Uri Party should join a coalition through a merger with a party created by deserters from the Uri Party and the Centrist United Democratic Party, Sunday. Other hopefuls say the embattled party should merge with the new party as an equal partner. The new party, which has 85 seats in the 299-member National Assembly, is the second largest negotiating group. The Uri Party has 58 seats, while the main opposition GNP has 128. ksy@koreatimes.co.kr