Local Elections Just Two Months Away

Each party’s candidates for upcoming election races in 16 cities and provinces are nearly set. The elections will be held 60 days from this Saturday.

The ruling Uri Party hopes to confirm the success of its reform policies from the upcoming local elections because the local elections are being regarded as a barometer of public sentiment. Therefore, it is likely that the party will nominate candidates who were former ministers and high-ranking government officials.

On the other hand, the Grand National Party (GNP) will stress the experience and leadership of current lawmakers and mayors. The GNP claims the elections will be a golden opportunity to confirm the people’s dissatisfaction over the current government’s policies.

The Uri Party plans to make an issue out of the Seoul mayor’s tennis scandal and the Busan mayor’s alleged abuse of privileges. In addition, it will select new faces made up of non-political experts. It has already confirmed candidates for seven of its races.

In particular, the Uri Party plans to gain strong support from the metropolitan area to Chungcheong and Jeolla provinces with its “dream team,” made up of candidates such as Kang Keum-sil (former justice minister) and Chin Dae-je (former information minister) to run in Seoul and Gyeonggi, respectively.

Also, the Uri Party aims to distinguish itself from GNP’s recent sexual harassment scandal involving Choi Yeon-hee by emphasizing its pro-women policies, such as nominating Han Myeong-sook as the new premier, and Kang as the candidate for Seoul. By doing so, it plans to obtain young people’s and women’s votes.

As for the GNP, it nominated candidates for Daejeon metropolitan city and South and North Jeolla provinces. It will confirm its candidates for Seoul and Gyeonggi, the two most important regions, in late April through internal elections.

However, in the Yeongnam region where it is sure to win, it will set the date for elections early, around mid-April. Also, in the regions where elections are not expected to be close, it will not conduct elections of its own to select a candidate in order to minimize structural conflicts within the party. Counter to the Uri Party’s pro-women policies, women candidates are to make up at least 30 percent.

Dong-Yong Min jin0619@donga.com mindy@donga.com