The main opposition party has won a surprise victory in local elections, dealing a serious blow to President Lee Myung-bak's reform drive and tough stance on North Korea.
The liberal Democratic Party (DP) won 8 mayoral and gubernatorial posts, while the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) secured five seats, according to data by the National Election Commission.
Oh Se-hoon of GNP came from behind to edg out opposition Han Myung-sook by about 25,000 in the neck-and-neck battle until the last hours this morning.
The candidate of DP Lee Si-jong beat the incumbent Gov. Chung Woo-taek in South Chungcheong Province, while independent candidates scored victories in South Gyeongsang Province and Jeju Province. The minor opposition Liberty Forward Party won in the Daejeon mayoral race.
"The people handed a solemn judgment to the Lee Myung-bak administration and the GNP," DP spokesman Woo Sang-ho said in a statement.
It is a "public verdict against the Lee government's arrogance and self-righteousness" and a victory for the entire opposition bloc, he added.
The first nationwide polls in two years here were to pick about 4,000 posts, including provincial governors, mayors, councilors and education chiefs by 39 million eligible voters.
A DP victory would end a winning streak by the conservative GNP in recent nationwide elections and herald a rough road for the remainder of Lee's presidency. His single five-year term is to finish in early 2013. It also brightens liberals' hope for regaining presidential power.
The DP is further emboldened by triumphs in Gangwon Province, where the GNP had been traditionally favored. Kim Doo-gwan, an independent who had served as a home affairs minister under the Roh Moo-hyun administration, won a victory in South Gyeongsang Province, a decades-old stronghold of the GNP.
The elections came as military tension was running high on the peninsula after South Korea accused the communist North of sinking one of its warships with an unprovoked torpedo attack in March. Forty-six sailors died in the incident. How to deal with North Korea is a traditionally hot election issue in the ideologically divided South.
Lee announced a set of retaliatory steps including the suspension of all but inter-Korean exchanges, and Pyongyang responded with threats of war.
The DP claimed Lee and his conservative party have put national security at risk by taking a confrontational approach towards Pyongyang. Other issues such as Lee's push for refurbishing South Korea's four major rivers and his alternative to a contentious project to create a new administrative town in a central region have been sidelined.
As expected, meanwhile, the rival parties attained easy wins in their respective power bases, reflecting persistent regionalism.
Kim Kwan-yong of the GNP easily succeeded in re-election as governor of North Gyeongsang Province, a decades-old stronghold of the party. Park Joon-young of the DP also was re-elected as governor of South Jeolla Province.
The GNP also clinched the Daegu mayorship, while the DP won the Gwangju mayoral competition.