Rhee In-Je Won Overwhelming Victory in South Chungcheong Province

Rep. Rhee In-Je continued to keep the top by widening the gap with Roh Moo-Hyun in the Millennium Democratic Party`s (MDP) primary in South Chungcheong Province on Saturday. Rhee won 1,432 votes, 73.7 percent of the total 1,944 votes.

Throughout the five local primaries, Rhee grabbed a total of 3,211 votes, 55.3 percent.

Roh only won 277 votes (14.2 percent) in the Saturday primary and came in second with a total of 1,514 votes (26.1 percent). The margin of votes between Rhee and Roh widened to 1,697 votes.

Kim Jung-Kwon collected 196 votes (10.1 percent) and came in distant third with a total of 761 votes (13.1 percent), and Chung Dong-Young only received 39 votes (2 percent) and recorded 322 votes in total.

However, in the Dong-A Ilbo`s poll on the MDP`s electoral college in South Gyeongsang Province, Roh recorded the top with more than 60 percent of favor.

The telephone poll was taken on 681 members of the electoral college out of a total of 4,201 members (2,045 delegates and party members, 2156 publics) of South Gyeongsang Province. Among the 558 respondents, 351 people (62.9 percent) supported Roh as their first choice.

Rhee earned 15.4 percent (86 people), and Chung and Kim won only 3.2 percent (18 people) and 2.0 percent (11 people), respectively.

Yong-Gwan Jung yongari@donga.com · Hyung-Kwon Pu bookum90@donga.com