Roh will not resign as party's candidate

The clash between the Millennium Democratic Party's presidential candidate, Roh Moo-hyun, and Hahn Hwa-kap, the party's chairman, moved further into the open on Wednesday. Mr. Hahn had proposed a day earlier that both men resign their positions, candidate and chairman, in the party and form a new one untainted by association with the Kim Dae-jung administration.

"Even if the results are unfavorable, I will fulfill my duties as a candidate," Mr. Roh told a press conference Wednesday. Mr. Hahn, a political rival within the party, had earlier said he and Mr. Roh should resign after the Aug. 8 legislative by-elections and form a new, more inclusive party.

"I would without a doubt relinquish the candidacy if a proper reason understandable to the people arises, but my stance to run for president is otherwise firm," he said.

One such reason might be another trouncing of the party's candidates for the Assembly in the Aug. 8 polls similar to the trouncing it received in elections for local and provincial officials in June. After that defeat, Mr. Roh had suggested he would ask for a vote of confidence from the party to continue as candidate if it were repeated in August.

"I will participate in a second nomination process if another candidate emerges, but the concept of another election is unthinkable unless it is under the MDP," he said, and then got to the heart of the matter ?his belief that Mr. Hahn's call for both to resign is a ploy to deny him the nomination of the MDP's successor party.

"I have discussed the issue of forming a new party with Representative Hahn, but our conversation was future-oriented; the objective was to clean up 'old politics' as the nation expects us to do, not to form a retrogressive new party," he said. "A new party that is formed for the purpose of dislodging Roh Moo-hyun as its presidential candidate is retrogressive; forming a new party with me as its candidate is progressive."

by Kim Chong-hyuk