April election races take shape as rivals name candidates

National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo gives a speech at a plenary session of at the National Assembly in Yeouido, western, Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP]

The contours of seat contests in the April 10 general election began to take shape over the weekend, with candidate nominations by both the liberal Democratic Party (DP) and conservative People Power Party (PPP) complete in approximately 49 parliamentary constituencies as of Sunday morning, according to results posted by the two parties.

The figure represents 19 percent of 253 directly-elected regional constituencies, with the remaining 47 seats in the 300-member National Assembly being filled by party-list proportional representation.

PPP candidate nominations have been decided in 110 regional constituencies, while the DP has finalized its contenders for 113 contests.

Both parties have been slow in finalizing their candidate lists for areas where they have traditionally been favored, prioritizing nominations for seats that are expected to be subject to fierce competition to introduce their contenders to voters in those regions earlier rather than later.

Twelve of the constituencies where candidates from both parties have been decided are located in Seoul, reflecting the capital’s centrality in the balance of seats in the National Assembly.

Some of the most closely fought contests are expected to occur in regional constituencies along the Han River.

In the Gwangjin-B constituency, former PPP lawmaker Oh Shin-hwan is expected to face off against Ko Min-jung of the DP, who previously defeated current Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon when he ran for that seat in 2020.

In the Gangseo-A constituency, former PPP lawmaker Koo Sang-chan will face current DP Rep. Kang Sun-woo, while former presidential transition committee official Kim Il-ho will seek election in Gangseo-C against DP lawmaker Han Jeong-ae.

In the Songpa-B constituency, PPP Rep. Bae Hyun-jin will face off against Song Ki-ho of the DP, while the PPP’s Lee Jae-young will compete against the DP’s Lee Hae-sik in the Gangdong-B constituency.

In the Seodaemun-B constituency, former Foreign Minister Park Jin of the PPP faces a fierce contest against the DP’s Kim Young-ho.

Park, who stepped down from the Foreign Ministry at the end of last year, previously represented the affluent Gangnam-B constituency in the National Assembly.

Meanwhile, the presidential office warned on Friday that it will take decisive steps to respond to fraudulent attempts to influence public opinion ahead of the April election after a fabricated video of President Yoon Suk Yeol apologizing for corruption and incompetence appeared online.

The video, which had been recently uploaded onto Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, depicted Yoon saying that his “incompetent and corrupt” government regularly committed “foul and unjust acts” leading to the “ruin of the nation.”

In an emergency meeting on Friday, the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) unanimously acceded to a request from police to take down the video, deciding that the video has the potential to cause significant social confusion.

In a press briefing on Friday, presidential spokesperson Kim Soo-kyung expressed “serious concern” that some local media outlets “are labeling the false and fabricated video as a satirical video or reporting on it as if it is OK because it is marked as fake.”

Kim added that the presidential office “plans to respond strongly to such false and fabricated videos in the future.”

The video was found to be a compilation of Yoon’s statements made during a February 2022 televised debate when he was a presidential candidate.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]