Ex-Prosecutor General Yoon joins main opposition party for presidential bid

Ex-Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl / Yonhap

Ex-Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, a leading conservative presidential hopeful, joined the main opposition party Friday to increase his chance of winning the race.

Yoon submitted an application to join the People Power Party (PPP) during his meeting with Rep. Kwon Young-se, the chief of the party's external relations committee, at the party's headquarters in Seoul.

The move, coming about a month after Yoon's official declaration to run in the March 9 presidential election, will subject him to the party's in-house primary election to pick its single presidential candidate.

"It will be a due obligation (for me) to join the main opposition party and follow through with its primary from the first stage openly and squarely to achieve a change of government," Yoon said during the meeting.

"I think, by doing so, I would be able to win higher and more universal support from the public," he noted. (Yonhap)