By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
With less than one and a half months to go before the National Assembly elections, the United Democratic Party (UDP) is suffering from a manpower shortage while the Grand National Party (GNP) is mulling over picking figures from about 1,100 applicants.
Also, the UDP may have difficulty in choosing candidates as many people are calling for stricter rules to screen lawmaker hopefuls.
If the party decides to exclude people convicted of corruption-related crimes from the nomination process, confidants of former Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun would not be entitled to run in the elections on the party's ticket.
A total of 486 people have applied for the liberal party ticket.
In addition, only the Jeolla region, the UDP's stronghold, was crowded with candidate hopefuls, while the Gyeongsang region where the governing GNP is expected to dominate saw little competition.
No one applied to compete in 72 districts in Gyeongsang and only one person each registered for 65 districts in the Gyeonggi and Chungcheong provinces.
The UDP is also likely to suffer from a shortage of viable figures because of the clash over whether to eliminate those involved in corruption cases.
While some lawmakers insist on setting strict rules as the GNP did, others claim that stronger criteria would rule out viable candidates.
If the party decides to ban persons found guilty of corruption, Kim Dae-jung's former chief of staff Park Ji-won and his second son Hong-up would be deprived of chances to run in the April 9 elections.
Roh's confidants Ahn Hee-jung and former lawmaker Kim Min-seok would also be excluded from the candidate list.
To save viable figures, some party members suggested screening people on a case-by-case basis.
Their suggestion is to give a chance to people who used the bribes for their political parties or campaigning.