Opposition Nears Election Sweep

Grand National Party candidates won all three legislative seats up for grabs in Thursday's by-elections － two in Seoul and one in Gangneung, Gangwon province. With the victory, the major opposition party claimed 136 seats in the 273-seat National Assembly, one shy of an outright majority.

The GNP candidate in the Guro-B district in Seoul, Lee Seung-chul, won by a margin of 3,500 votes － 6.7 percent － over Kim Han-gill of President Kim's party, the Millennium Democrats. In the Dongdaemun-B district in Seoul, Hong Joon-pyo defeated the MDP's Heo In-hoi by a narrower margin of 3,677 votes.

In the Gangneung by-election, the GNP candidate, Choi Don-woong, pulled ahead quickly in early vote counting and at midnight led an independent candidate, Choi Wook-chul, by 4,721 votes with about 14,000 votes still to be counted. Mr. Choi is a former GNP assemblyman who split from the party after it bypassed him for renomination for the same Gangneung seat in the last legislative election.

The MDP candidate, Kim Mun-gi, finished a distant third in Gangneung.

The apparent sweep gives opposition leader Lee Hoi-chang a commanding position in the political landscape ahead of next June's local elections and the December 2002 presidential election. Conversely, the results are a strong blow to the president and his party.

The GNP was ecstatic. Lee Hoi-chang, the Grand National Party leader and a presidential aspirant, said, "Thank you, members. You have really done well." The GNP spokesman, Kwon Chul-hyun, said, "We bow our heads to you, the public, in deep gratitude."

Confident that it has a working majority, if not a technical one, in the Assembly and crediting its sweep to voter dissatisfaction with what it termed administration and ruling party corruption and misrule, opposition leaders said they will now try to start a dialogue with the ruling camp. But the GNP did not hide its swagger as it looks ahead to next year's election agenda.

The Millennium Democratic Party headquarters was seized with shock.

"I have nothing to say. The ruling party should be born again," said Representative Chung Sye-kyun of the MDP.

"We did our best. I have nothing further to say," said Rhee In-je, a member of the leadership council.

Song Hun-suk, vice secretary-general of the MDP, said, "The election results are a grave judgement on our party's mismanagement."

MDP insiders said that internal calls for party reform led by a group of younger lawmakers, most notably Representatives Kim Keun-tae and members of a group calling itself "Reform 21," will reemerge.

After the polls closed at 6:00 p.m, absentee voting tallies initially gave the MDP a small lead, but after only 30 minutes of tabulating today's votes, the tide turned.

Election commission officials said that distribution of money and gifts to woo voters was markedly less than previous by-elections, but mudslinging and personal attacks － including some physical attacks － were more frequent than in earlier elections.

By Wednesday, the commission had tallied 75 cases of alleged illegal campaigning. That figure is a jump over the 33 cases brought to the commission during the June 1999 by-elections in the Songpa-A district in Seoul and the Gyeyang and Ganghwa districts in Incheon.

The average voter turnout, calculated at 6:00 p.m. when the polls closed, was 42 percent, the commission said.

Turnout in Dongdaemun was 46 percent; it was 41 percent in Gangneung and 39 percent in Guro.

by Lee Yang-soo