(News Focus) Election defeat casts gloom over Lee administration, ruling party

(ATTN: UPDATES with election results in paras 2-4, GNP leader's intent to resign;
minor changes)
By Yoo Cheong-mo
SEOUL, June 3 (Yonhap) -- The main opposition party's stunning victory in
Wednesday's local elections is expected to present a major setback to the Lee
Myung-bak government's push for a hard-line approach to North Korea,
controversial infrastructure projects and administrative and economic reforms,
political analysts said Thursday.
Defying pre-election surveys and expectations, the Democratic Party (DP) put up a
strong fight in the Seoul metropolitan area and won three posts in central
provinces of Chungcheong and Gangwon, in addition to landslides in its
traditional strongholds in the southwestern provinces of Jeolla.
The ruling Grand National Party (GNP) defeated the main opposition party in the
most crucial race for Seoul mayor, but in very narrow margin. Its candidate lost
to an independent close to the opposition camp in the gubernatorial race of South
Gyeongsang Province, the conservative party's traditional stronghold.
The GNP also lost all but four of the races for heads of Seoul's 25 autonomous
districts.
North Korea's deadly attack on a South Korean warship in March and President
Lee's steady approval rating, hovering around 50 percent, were widely expected to
favor candidates of the GNP, but the public apparently wanted more to hold the
incumbent government in check, resulting in the ruling party's crushing defeat.
The Lee administration has been criticized by liberal voters for its bid to scrap
the previous government's plan to move over half of government ministries to a
new town south of Seoul and refurbish the nation's four major rivers.
The electoral outcome will also likely throw the GNP into a leadership crisis.
The party chairman Chung Mong-joon, a presidential aspirant, said he is resigning
to take responsibility.
"The election outcome fell far short of our forecasts and expectations. As the
ruling party, we have done our best but failed to meet the people's
expectations," GNP spokesman Cho Hae-jin said. "We'll humbly and faithfully
accept the people's true intentions."
DP chairman Chung Sye-kyun and other party leaders said the public has sent a
clear message of resentment to the Lee government for its "arbitrary" policy
approaches.
"From now on, the ruling party will find it difficult to unilaterally push ahead
with key national policies in disregard of opposition parties," said Woo Sang-ho,
a spokesman for the DP.
The rival political parties had particularly concentrated on the races for 16
metropolitan mayors and provincial governors, regarding the local elections as a
crucial litmus test of public sentiment toward the conservative Lee government
and a prelude to parliamentary and presidential elections in 2012.
Lee's five-year term ends in February 2013, and he is barred by law from seeking
re-election.
The unexpectedly strong turnout by young voters, as seen in the 15-year-high
turnout of 54.5 percent recorded on Wednesday, had also worked unfavorably for
the ruling camp.
"The younger generation must have had strong complaints about the election
watchdog's regulation of social networking sites, like Twitter, and other means
of free expression," said Kang Won-taek, a professor at Seoul's Soongsil
University. "In addition, the general voters may have reacted negatively to the
government's hard-line approach to the warship sinking and the resulting
inter-Korean hostilities."
The analysts also said the opposition party's sweep of Daejeon and the central
provinces of Chungcheong represented a backlash against the Lee government's
campaign to cancel the construction of the so-called Sejong administrative town
in the region.
Notably, three politicians close to former President Roh Moo-hyun, Lee's
immediate predecessor, emerged victorious in gubernatorial and metropolitan
mayoral races, thanks largely to liberal voters' renewed enthusiasm towards the
late Roh.
Lee Kwang-jae and Ahn Hee-jung, both close to Roh, won the gubernatorial races in
Gangwon and South Chungcheong provinces, respectively, while Kim Doo-gwan,
formerly a home minister during the Roh presidency, defeated a GNP candidate
favored by President Lee to become South Gyeongsang Province governor.
Roh committed suicide in May 2009 during an investigation into graft charges, a
probe his supporters claim was politically motivated.
As the first anniversary of Roh's death fell on the eve of the June 2 polls,
sympathy for the former liberal president may have been an important factor in
the elections, according to the analysts.
"The outcome of the local elections reflected the public's concern about the
ruling party's previously anticipated victory. The voters also must have reacted
negatively to the ruling camp's apparent efforts to capitalize on the naval
disaster," said Chung Ki-nam, a senior researcher at the Korea Society Opinion
Institute.
Meanwhile, the nation's macroeconomic policies are unlikely to undergo
significant changes, as the Korean economy is now on a path to stable recovery,
government officials and analysts say.
Instead, the Lee administration is expected to implement hikes of public utility
charges, reform of public corporations and other policy measures long delayed by
the local elections, they predicted.
The government is also expected to take steps to expand tax revenues and
rationalize expenditures as part of efforts to enhance fiscal soundness.
"The (debt) crisis in southern Europe will certainly have some influence on
countries mulling over an exit strategy," Yoon Jeung-hyun, minister of strategy
and finance, told reporters earlier this week. "The government's present position
is that it will stick to its macroeconomic policies for the time being."
A ranking ministry official also noted that rival parties showed little
difference over the nation's macroeconomic policies during the campaign.
ycm@yna.co.kr
(END)