Rhee In-je moves to the front

DAEJEON -The ruling Millennium Democratic party's primary in Daejeon on Sunday lifted Rhee In-je to the front-runner position in the primaries for the first time. He won 894 electors, 68 percent of the 1,325 votes cast in the primary, outpacing Noh Mu-hyun, who emerged from the day's voting with 219 electors.

Mr. Noh had won the primary in Gwangju on Saturday, winning 38 percent of the votes there and defying expectations about how well a man from the Gyeongsang provinces would run in the Jeollas. There are historical enmities between the two regions.

The win in Gwangju had put Mr. Noh temporarily in the top spot, ahead of Mr. Rhee by 133 votes after Saturday's balloting.

Political observers and strategists are starting to say that the primary is coming down to a fight between Mr. Rhee and Mr. Noh. Although the four primaries so far have involved only about 9 percent of the 70,000 delegates who will select the MDP's presidential candidate, party insiders said they expected the vote in the four areas - Daejeon, Gwangju, Ulsan and Jeju - to be a good indicator of voters' preferences in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi primaries, where more than 40 percent of the total number of electors live. Several political scientists have said that the first few primaries would be a good indicator of the party's presidential nominee, just as the New Hampshire state primary sets the tone for the U.S. presidential race.

Representative Hahn Hwa-kap came in a distant third with 14 percent of the total votes in the four primaries. Representative Kim Joong-kwon followed with 13 percent of the votes, and the tail-ender was Representative Chung Dong-young, with 6 percent.

None of the three trailing contenders have said that they would withdraw their bids as two contenders - epresentative Kim Keun-tae and North Jeolla Governor You Jong-keun ?did after the kickoff primaries in Jeju and Ulsan.

Mr. Rhee is a native of Chungcheong province, of which Daejeon is a part. His win there has given new life to his presidential bid. Before the kickoff primaries in Ulsan and Jeju on March 8 and 9, Mr. Lee had been seen as the party's strongest contender. But he suffered consecutive defeats, to Hahn Hwa-kap in Jeju and to Noh Mu-hyun in Ulsan and Gwangju, dimming his star.

After the win in Daejeon, Mr. Rhee's supporters said that they will campaign vigorously in the South Chungcheong and Gangwon provincial primaries next weekend to gain as much of an edge over Mr. Noh as they can in those regions. Tough battles are ahead as the Gyeongsang provinces' primaries loom nearer. Mr. Noh is expected to run strongly in Gyeongsang, his regional base.

"We have fundamentally changed our strategy," said Jeon Yong-hak, a former MDP spokesman who is now campaigning for Mr. Rhee.

"We have had no help from the Old Donggyo-dong faction led by Kwon Roh-kap. Rather, Mr. Rhee's reformist image was damaged because of the perceived association," Mr. Rhee's aide said after his win in Daejeon.

Mr. Noh is from Gyeongsang province and has not received the backing of the boss of the ruling party's most powerful faction, the Donggyo-dong group of Kim Dae-jung loyalists.

Mr. Rhee had the faction's de facto support in the Gwangju primary, and also had a large measure of goodwill stemming from his role in helping President Kim Dae-jung win the 1997 presidential election. He bolted from the then-ruling New Korea Party, ran for president himself, and attracted 5 million votes that otherwise would probably have gone to the New Korea Party's candidate, Lee Hoi-chang, Kim Dae-jung won the presidency by only several hundred thousand votes. Despite that record, Mr. Rhee got only 31 percent of the votes in Gwangju's primary.

"I believe in the votes given to me in Gwangju. We did as well as we could in Daejeon," Mr. Noh said. Mr. Noh's camp expects that strong support from younger voters, especially those in their 30s who were leaders of a wave of democracy protests in late 1980s,will continue through the remaining primaries.

"The campaign movement by supporters of Mr. Noh, led by the white-collar class but buttressed also by unionized workers and collegians, is morphing into a social movement with a momentum of its own," said Rhyu Simin, a political analyst.

Many still question whether his populist and reformist appeal will carry him to a win in the decisive Seoul primary. In a survey done by the JoongAng Ilbo on the political spectrum of the presidential hopefuls, Mr. Noh was evaluated as the most liberal, scoring 1.5 on a scale of one to 10.

Popular enthusiasm for Mr. Noh exploded at the Yeomju Gymnasium in Gwangju on Saturday when he was pronounced the winner. Chanting "Noh Mu-hyun," his supporters took to the stage where they lingered for more than 30 minutes, delivering a group bow and raising their arms in victory. Mr. Noh also received some support from star power: the movie actors Moon Seong-keun and Myeong Gye-nam worked for him there.

"We want someone to win the votes of the Gyeongsang provinces, which we must do in order for the party to win the presidential election," said Jo Oh-yong, 68, who serves as an adviser to a local party chapter in Gwangju. The candidate should be someone such as Mr. Rhee, she said, who can stand up to the opposition leader Lee Hoi-chang in the general election.

In Daejeon, Mr. Rhee received standing ovations intermittently during his speech.

But the nomination may well be decided by a candidate's ability to obtain votes in the primaries where he has no regional ties. Mr. Rhee's lead comes from the Daejeon results; Mr. Noh's second-place standing also depends heavily on the primary election results of a city in his province, Ulsan. One observer close to Mr. Rhee said that if Hahn Hwa-kap drop out of the race, Mr. Rhee would get most of the votes Mr. Hahn would abandon.

Party officials are worrying over the tendency of a decrease in the participation rates in the primaries: 85 percent in Jeju, 71 percent in Ulsan, 81 percent in Gwangju, and 71 percent in Daejeon. Because the turnout rates are lower than expected, party leaders are concerned at the possibility that the primaries could be decided by the organizational prowess of the contenders, which would not raise the party's status among the people and risks nominating a candidate without much public support.

But the primaries were enhancing people's awareness of politics - an awareness that the ruling party will have to heed. Gwangju's vote for Mr. Noh, in particular, may illustrate the changing sentiment of voters. And voters from the politically symbolic city seemed to signal a change, some observers contended, away from boss, faction and money-dominated politics and toward a more grass-roots approach to constituents.

"I want Korean politics to be rid of regionalism," said Kim Seok-il, 36, who works for the National Agricultural Cooperatives Federation in Gwangju. Mr. Kim was selected from among 100 of his colleagues at his workplace to become the registered member of the MDP primary electorate. He said he was looking for "some new, clean blood."

"I voted for the future," said another 56-year-old elector in Gwangju.

Although electors in Daejeon were faithful to their regional compatriot, younger electors seemed to signal that they wanted some changes. "I voted for the candidate who can bring about reform," a 29-year-old businessman in Daejeon said, but did not give his name.

by Kim Ji-soo