Ruling party to elect new chairperson at Monday's convention

(ATTN: UPDATES with electoral college ballots in the 2nd para from the bottom)
SEOUL, July 3 (Yonhap) -- The ruling Grand National Party (GNP) will elect new leadership at its national convention Monday, as it seeks to freshen its public image and policies ahead of next year's general and presidential polls.
The GNP's convention slated for Monday afternoon at Seoul's Olympic Gymnastics Hall will elect the party's new chairperson and four supreme council members from among a total of seven candidates.



The seven -- Reps. Won Hee-ryong, Kwon Young-se, Hong Joon-pyo, Nam Kyung-pil, Park Jin, Yoo Seung-min and Na Kyung-won -- are all in their late 40s and early 50s. There have been recent calls for a young leader to steer the struggling conservative party through next April's general elections.
Political watchers have warned that the GNP stands to lose many of the 171 seats that it currently has in the 299-member National Assembly unless it turns voter sentiment around amid negative perceptions about the grim job market and growing income disparity under the pro-business Lee Myung-bak administration.
According to the latest opinion polls, Hong, a four-term lawmaker who formerly served as a prosecutor, is a front-runner by a slim margin, with Won and Na close behind.
The GNP's new leadership election will be determined based on a 7-to-3 combination of votes from a 210,000-member electoral college and the outcome of a telephone survey of 3,000 people held over the weekend.
As of Sunday evening, 52,809 party members, or 25.9 percent of the electoral college, cast their votes at 251 polling places nationwide, the party's election watchdog said. The number of votes will be added up to determine results of the party delegate ballots, which will be announced during Monday's convention, and the two-day telephone survey.
The party's new chairperson will be declared after the nationwide daylong voting is completed at 6 p.m.