By-election rout leaves MDP future uncertain

Roh Moo-hyun, the Millennium Democratic Party's presidential candidate, appeared to abandon his opposition to reopening the question of the party's candidate Thursday. His position changed on the day that his party suffered another humiliating election defeat, this one in Thursday's elections to fill vacancies in the National Assembly.

Mr. Roh said he would participate in forming a new party to try to make voters forget the links between the MDP and the scandal-ridden Kim Dae-jung administration. He said through a close aide, Representative Moon Hee-sang, that he would participate in the new party if it opts for a new round of balloting to select a presidential standard bearer before the Chuseok holidays. Mr. Moon said Mr. Roh and MDP Chairman Hahn Hwa-kap struck the deal personally.

A dissident MDP faction has argued since the party's rout in June 13 local and provincial elections that the party would lose the presidential election unless the party replaced its candidate and other leaders and changed its name. Mr. Roh had been opposed to a new party unless he were the nominee of that party.

The MDP dissident faction wants to woo high-profile figures from outside the party, including former Prime Minister Lee Han-dong; Chung Mong-joon, an independent lawmaker and vice-president of FIFA, the international soccer federation and Representative Park Geun-hye, who bolted from the GNP and launched a new political party, the Korean Coalition for the Future. Mr. Lee has said he would join the new party and Ms. Park is reportedly considering doing so, but Mr. Chung, whose popularity rose after the successful World Cup, is uncommitted.

Before the elections, the GNP and MDP battled over claims that the son of the GNP presidential candidate, Lee Hoi-chang, had dodged the draft. The MDP was desperate to reverse voter sentiment expressed in polls that pointed to a sweeping victory for the GNP. The GNP's victory confirmed Mr. Lee's standing in his party, observers said, because the MDP failed to influence the election by harping on the draft-dodging issue. Korean political fans seem to agree that the issue is less important to voters than the recent corruption scandals for which two of President Kim Dae-jung's sons are being detained.

The MDP has only won two elections during President Kim's tenure: the local elections held in 1998 and the by-elections that selected lawmakers in March 1999.

The GNP scored sweeping victories in the June 1999 by-elections, the 2000 legislative elections, by-elections in October 2001 and the local elections this year.

by Kim Chong-hyuk