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| Former Startups Minister Park Young-sun, left, celebrates winning the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) primary to choose its candidate for the April 7 Seoul mayoral by-election. Park was declared the DPK's sole candidate at the party headquarters on Yeouido, Seoul, Monday. Yonhap |
Former Startups Minister Park Young-sun was named the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's candidate to run in the April 7 Seoul mayoral by-election, Monday.
Park, also a former four-term lawmaker, was declared the winner of a party primary against sitting four-term lawmaker Woo Sang-ho, winning 69.56 percent of the ballots cast by voters in and outside of the party over the phone and the internet for four days to Monday.
The support rating was calculated to include extra points the party awarded to Park as a female candidate.
"By becoming one team with the Moon Jae-in administration and the DPK, I will stably run the city to return happiness to Seoul residents," Park said in an acceptance speech.
"Over the next 100 years, Seoul will become the world capital of the digital economy," she noted.
Park must now compete against two other candidates ― Rep. Cho Jung-hun from the Transition Korea Party and Kim Jin-ai of the Open Democratic Party ― to select a single candidate for the liberal bloc, which she is highly likely to win.
The upcoming mayoral by-election for Seoul, home to nearly 10 million of the country's 52 million population, is deemed a critical barometer of public opinion ahead of the 2022 presidential election.
The winner will serve out the remaining 14 months of the four-year term of their predecessor, the late former Mayor Park Won-soon.
Earlier in the day, Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the minor opposition People's Party, won a primary against independent candidate Keum Tae-sup, clearing the first hurdle in his bid to become a single candidate for the opposition bloc.
Ahn, who has been leading in some of the latest opinion polls for the upcoming election, has called for fielding a single candidate to represent the broader opposition bloc encompassing the People Power Party, in order to increase the chances of winning the by-election.
The PPP is set to pick its candidate Thursday, with former floor leader Na Kyung-won and former Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon as front-runners.
The latest polls conducted in February showed Ahn and Park are neck-and-neck in a hypothetical two-way competition for the Seoul mayoralty.
Both Ahn and the PPP agree on the need for a unified candidate, however, a thorny road lies ahead over how they will choose this person. (Yonhap)
