Prime Minister Chung Un-chan Saturday backed President Lee Myung-back's initiative to reduce the number of administrative offices relocated to a new city in the central part of the country, one day after President Lee Myung-bak said the city plan would be a disaster if built as planned, Yonhap said.

"The new plan for Sejong city the government is trying to draw up is to make the city better than it will be under the current plan," Chung said in a meeting with a group of residents in the area.

Chung's move in the Lee administration is a focus of attention because he is widely believed to have a very different political philosophy than that of the President, who recruited him to "unify" the nation.

Some view the Lee and Chung duo as a "marriage of convenience" in which Chung will increasingly lose his independent voice and follow the party line of Cheong Wa Dae, the president's office.

Meanwhile, opposition parties Saturday vowed to intensify their struggle against a government move to reduce the number of administrative offices relocated to a new city in the central part of the country.

The main opposition Democratic Party held a street rally later Saturday in South Chungcheong Province where construction for the originally envisioned administrative city, Sejong, was under way.

The Democratic Party claims the move will negatively impact 10 other industrial or business cities already under construction.

The minor opposition Liberty Forward Party, most of whose 17 lawmakers are based in the Chungcheong provinces, plans to hold rallies in each and every city in South and North Chungcheong provinces before the end of the year to campaign against the "injustice" inflicted on the area by the president and his government, party officials said.