Parties mull over election result

The two major political parties and their presidential nominees reacted very differently to how their political fortunes have changed in three months.

The opposition Grand National Party responded joyously to the recent JoongAng Ilbo survey that showed its candidate, Lee Hoi-chang, leading Millennium Democratic Party candidate Roh Moo-hyun by 12.6 percent after the MDP was soundly beaten at last Thursday's local elections.

"Rohphoon has gone with the wind," Nam Kyung-pil, the GNP spokesman said, referring to the so-called "Roh typhoon" that swept the candidate to a large lead over Mr. Lee in opinion polls in early April.

Mr. Roh, a largely self-educated former lawyer with a reputation for gutsiness and advocacy for the underprivileged, came seemingly out of nowhere to win the most votes in the MDP primaries. After winning the nomination at the party convention in April, he led Mr. Lee by as much as 21.4 percent in major opinion polls.

Lee Jong-gu, a special aide to Mr. Lee, said, "You can say Mr. Lee's popularity has bottomed out, and his advantage will continue."

The Grand Nationals were especially elated with the shift in the opinions of voters in their 30s, 42.8 percent of whom said they would vote for Mr. Lee in December over Mr. Roh. Voters in their 20s and 30s, who make up about 50 percent of the Korean electorate, had strongly supported Mr. Roh both in the MDP primaries and in the earlier polls.

The Grand Nationals did not discount the possibility that the respondents in the poll were just reacting to the party's big win Thursday.

To keep whatever momentum he has, Mr. Lee will soon begin a "listening" tour of nine provinces and seven metropolitan cities where he will sell his education, health care and North Korea policies, and gather opinions to mold into a platform for the presidential race. He also canceled a trip to China, reportedly in protest of Beijing's hard-line stance on North Korean refugees at the South Korean Embassy in Beijing.

While the GNP looked confident and united, the Millennium Democrats seemed divided, falling back to factional loyalties. "The poll results are just fallout after the defeat Thursday. His popularity will rebound," said Chung Dong-chae, a member of Mr. Roh's staff. While a majority of the Millennium Democrats, according to party sources, attributed the fall to the scandals surrounding President Kim Dae-jung's sons, they said the dramatic loss of support among voters in their 30s was worrisome. Mr. Roh's detractors within the party likened his steady loss of popularity to the burst of a bubble economy.

by Lee Jung-min