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Grand National Party presidential candidate Lee Hoi-chang said Monday during a TV interview from Incheon that the upcoming presidential election would be a fight between a radical and unstable party and a rational one. Lee said he had every confidence in winning the election as no matter who became a single candidate, it was a strategy to prolong the power of the current Kim Dae-jung administration.
Millennium Democratic Party and now single presidential candidate Roh Mu-hyun told a campaign committee meeting, that though the GNP was trying to make the upcoming election as a fight between conservatives and liberals, the MDP was not a liberal party. Roh continued that many voters did not want an ideological confrontation and wished for the end of old fashioned politics. He said the race for the presidency featured two strong candidates for the first time since the 1971 battle between Park Chung-hee and Kim Dae-jung.
During a joint-interview with Roh and Chung Mong-joon, the two said they had reached an agreement to fine tune the campaign policies between them to win the election. However, they continued negotiations between their respective parties would continue.
The members of the single candidate committee, MDP's break away groups, will hold a final meeting Tuesday to talk about dismantling the committee and returning to the MDP. However, three lawmakers Lee Hee-kyu, Song Young-jin, and Yu Jae-kyu will observe the situation for a while without making any decision.
The United Liberal Democrats leader Kim Jong-pil and its lawmakers held an emergency meeting on the same day to discuss the future of their party; however this ended without reaching an agreement between supporting Lee Hoi-chang or creating an independent path.
National Alliance 21's spokeswoman Kim Haeng said the party would continue and will prepare for future elections.
(Choi Jun-sok, jschoi@chosun.com )
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