By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff reporter
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) won seven of the 16 metropolitan mayoral and gubernatorial posts in Wednesday’s elections, defeating the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) that took only six.
Incumbent Mayor of Seoul Oh Se-hoon, who ran on the GNP ticket, was reelected after edging out his rival, Han Myeong-sook of the DP, in a drawn-out battle that was too close to call all night.
Oh was declared the winner Thursday morning after all votes were counted.
The DP swept its home turfs of Jeolla and the port city of Incheon, and even took Gangwon, where no liberal politician has occupied the gubernatorial post since the local polls were introduced back in 1995.
Song Young-ghil won the Incheon election, defeating incumbent Mayor Ahn Sang-soo of the GNP who was seeking a third-term.
The DP’s wins in Incheon and Gangwon made it the de factor winner of Wednesday’s elections.
The minor Liberty Forward Party (LFP), led by Rep. Lee Hoi-chang, won the Daejeon mayoral race. But overall, the results were disappointing for the LFP as it had high expectations for the South Chungcheong gubernatorial race where “Sejong City voters” were expected to carry the party to victory.
In the two other battlegrounds elections, the ruling party won the Seoul and Gyeonggi elections.
Kim Moon-soo of the GNP was reelected as governor of Gyeonggi Province, defeating Rhyu Si-min, the opposition’s unified candidate and a close confidant of the late former President Roh Moo-hyun.
The tight Seoul race came as a surprise because incumbent Mayor Oh led former Prime Minister Han by a double-digit margin in opinion polls conducted before the elections.
Returns of followers of late Roh
Followers of late Roh performed surprisingly well.
Lee Gwang-jae, a close aide of the Roh, was elected as the first liberal to become governor of Gangwon.
Kim Doo-kwan, dubbed “little Roh” due to his common career background and life path with his former boss, won the South Gyeongsang race. The independent politician defeated GNP candidate Lee Dal-gon, a former minister of public administration and security of the Lee Myung-bak government, in the GNP’s home turf.
The late Roh’s hometown, the village of Bongha, is located in South Gyeongsang Province.
The victory caused campaign watchers to say the late President Roh had outperformed the incumbent Lee on the GNP’s home turf.
Another of Roh’s former aides, Ahn Hee-jung, was elected as governor of South Chungcheong Province.
Record-high turnout
Voter turnout reached 54.5 percent, up 2.9 percent from the 2006 local elections and the second-highest mark since local autonomy was first introduced in June 1995.
The election results suggest that voters came to ballot boxes to vote against the ruling GNP, analysts say.
Hidden vote effect
The high turnout indicates that so-called “hidden votes” had a significant effect on the polls.
Hidden votes refer to the supporters of opposition parties who don’t reveal their preferred candidates in pre-election surveys, creating discrepancies between survey and election results.
Political scientists said the results would be an indicator of the public’s assessment of President Lee Myung-bak’s job performance in the first half of his presidency.
Previous local elections that took place about two years after a new president took office also saw the main opposition party defeat the ruling party by a wide margin.
Polling stations were open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and voters cast ballots to select about 4,000 mayors, governors, city and provincial council members, education superintendents and education board members.
Pollsters said good weather discouraged some from turning out to vote as they were tempted to spend time with their families or go on trips.
Experts said about 20 percent of undecided voters determined the outcome of the election.
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