Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Parties struggling in home turfs
Kim Boo-kyum of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy seeks support during a visit to a temple in Daegu, Sunday. Kim is running in the Daegu mayoral election against Kwon Young-jin of the ruling Saenuri Party. / Yonhap
By Jun Ji-hye
By Jun Ji-hye
The ruling and opposition parties are currently being threatened in their respective traditional home turfs, buffeted by independent candidates in the run-up to the June 4 local elections.
Alerted by the mavericks faring well thus far, the two main parties are engaged in a desperate fight to safeguard their strongholds, as defeats there will severely dent their fortunes nationally.
The governing Saenuri Party has been in the hot seat in the Busan mayoral election.
Until recently, Saenuri’s Suh Byung-soo had been expected to clinch an overwhelming victory in the nation’s second largest city.
But all that is now in doubt after Kim Young-choon of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) made a concession to independent Oh Keo-don in order to field a single opposition candidate.
In a recent survey jointly conducted by local daily Hankyoreh and pollster ReSearch PLUS, Suh garnered only 28.4 percent compared to Oh’s 41.1 percent in a two-way race.
“The unification of opposition candidates amounts to political collusion. That is a foul play,” said Suh in a news conference, criticizing Oh and Kim’s decision.
In response, Oh’s campaign team stressed that the process of selecting the single candidate was fair and transparent, calling it a “beautiful unification.”
A similar sense of crisis has also begun to grip the governing camp’s ranks in Daeju, hometown of President Park Geun-hye, as Saenuri’s Kwon Young-jin and the NPAD’s Kim Boo-kyum are running neck and neck in various opinion polls, a far cry from the earlier prediction of Kwon cruising to victory.
Concerns are growing as the trend seems to be in line with recent growing public outrage over the Park government’s poor management of the tragic sinking of the Sewol ferry that claimed the lives of hundreds of passengers.
The governing camp was defeated in a gubernatorial election in South Gyeongsang Province in 2010 when independent Kim Doo-kwan won the poll.
The NPAD, on its part, is also likely to face a similar challenge at its stronghold of Gwangju.
The party selected Yoon Jang-hyun to stand on its ticket without conducting primary, resulting in the defection of sitting Mayor Kang Un-tae and former lawmaker Lee Yong-sup who protested the party leadership’s unilateral move.
Yoon’s approval ratings is steadily growing, but analysts say that if Kang and Lee come up with a compromise single candidate, then Yoon’s fortunes will be severely threatened.
Meanwhile, in the event of Yoon’s defeat, the implication for the leadership of co-chairmen Reps. Ahn Cheol-soo and Kim Han-gil will be far reaching, given that they have both come in for criticism for the manner of nominating Yoon, which critics called a parachute appointment.
Mindful of these criticisms, the two leaders visited Gwangju city over the weekend to assess the local sentiment on the ground.
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