Saenuri unveils candidates for non-electoral seats
By Kim Hyo-jin
Song Hee-kyung
The ruling Saenuri Party announced a list of 45 proportional representation nominees for the April 13 general election, with Song Hee-kyung, mobile carrier KT’s Internet of Things (IoT) chief, and retired Army Col. Lee Jong-myung tapped as Nos. 1 and 2.
“Song is a female R&D expert in the nascent IoT market and cloud computing business who will contribute to the Park Geun-hye administration’s key creative economy policy objective,” Lee Hahn-koo, head of the selection committee, told reporters. “She is also a mother with two children who has been working for 28 years.”
Song is the vice president of KT’s GiGA IoT business division and chairwoman of the Korea Association of Cloud Industry.
Lee Jong-myung is a respected retired Army officer, who lost his legs in a land mine blast after throwing himself onto a fellow soldier near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to save his life during a search operation in June 2000. Despite the severe injury, Lee continued his military career and retired last year.
The party also nominated former Korail CEO Choi Yeon-hye as No. 5; Jeon Hee-gyeong, the secretary-general of the Center for Free Enterprise, who mounted an active campaign in support of President Park Geun-hye’s push for state-authored history textbooks as No. 9; Yoo Min-bong, a former senior presidential secretary for state affairs planning as No. 12; and go player Cho Hoon-hyun as No. 14.
It is expected that 20 out of 45 candidates on the list are likely to get a parliamentary seat. In the previous race in 2012, 616 candidate hopefuls applied and 25 out of 44 final candidates became lawmakers for the Saenuri Party.
The party went through the screening process of 665 candidate hopefuls last week and selected 45 on the criteria of whether they were leaders for long-term social reform or heroes who set an example to children, the committee chief said.