Busan’s Geumjeong district by-election race tightens as rival party chiefs jump into the fray

The Oct. 16 by-election in Busan’s Geumjeong District has unexpectedly tightened as rival parties cast the contest to select the district’s next chief as a referendum about the state of the country’s politics.

People Power Party (PPP) leader Han Dong-hoon, left, speaks during a Wednesday rally near Pusan National University for Yoon Il-hyun, right, who is the party's candidate for chief of Busan's Geumjeong District. [YONHAP]

The Oct. 16 by-election in Busan’s Geumjeong District has unexpectedly tightened as rival parties cast the contest to select the district’s next chief as a referendum about the state of the country’s politics.

With only a week left before the election, a survey conducted by the Korea Society Opinion Institute (KSOI) shows that conservative People Power Party (PPP) candidate Yoon Il-hyun is polling 43.5-percent support against liberal Democratic Party (DP) candidate Kim Kyung-ja, who recorded 40 percent.

However, the KSOI survey’s margin of error was plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, which exceeds the difference between Yoon and Kim’s poll numbers.

The by-election in Geumjeong, usually a safe seat for conservative candidates, tightened after the DP and the minor liberal Rebuilding Korea Party threw their weight behind a single candidate to avoid fracturing the liberal vote in the area.

In a sign of how seriously both parties are taking the race, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon and DP leader Lee Jae-myung made stump appearances in Geumjeong on Wednesday to promote their respective candidates.

In his remarks at a rally for Kim, Lee called on Geumjeong residents to turn out in force to “issue a warning to the Yoon Suk Yeol administration.”

The DP leader also told Kim’s supporters to use the district chief race as an opportunity to hand a “second judgment” against the Yoon administration following the government-aligned PPP’s wipeout in the April general election.

But Han, who appeared at the PPP’s campaign headquarters the same day, called on Geumjeong residents to reject the DP’s efforts to “turn an election focused on selecting a regional civil servant” into an extension of the country’s “political war.”

Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, third from left, walks alongside Kim Kyung-ja, second from right, who is the party's candidate for chief of Busan's Geumjeong District, near Oncheoncheon, a stream that runs through the area.

Four other by-elections will be held on Oct. 16 to choose the heads of Ganghwa County in Incheon, Yeonggwang and Gokseong counties in South Jeolla and the superintendent of education in Seoul.

The by-elections are also the first to take place since Han was elected leader of the PPP in July and Lee won a second term as DP chairman in August.

While Ganghwa also leans conservative, Yeonggwang and Gokseong are in a DP-dominated region.

As such, the leaders of both major parties face significant pressure to retain their strongholds and wrest control of the Seoul office of education to prove their mettle.

Official campaigning began on Oct. 3, with early voting to take place over two days from Oct. 10 to 11. Main voting takes place on Oct. 16.

The by-election to select the chief of Ganghwa County has been complicated by the candidacy of former Incheon Mayor Ahn Sang-soo, who left the PPP to run as an independent in what is now a four-way race with candidates from the PPP and DP and another independent.

In Yeonggwang and Gokseong, where conservatives stand little chance of winning, the by-elections have turned into a competition between the DP and the Rebuilding Korea Party.

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