Chough was elected with 3,119 votes, totaling 31.03 percent in support, from eight candidates on the ballot. There were 5,046 voting representatives at the meeting, each of whom was allowed to vote for two candidates.

Chough’s ascent to the leadership of the MDP, which recently went from being a ruling to an opposition party, follow in the footsteps of his father, Dr. Chough Byong-ok.

Dr. Chough was elected as the chief of the MDP's predecessor, the Democratic Party, in 1956, and died of a disease at a U.S. military hospital in 1960 while running for president.

"By making a landslide victory in the general election next year, we will regain the half of our strength we lost to President Roh Moo-hyun’s act of betrayal. We will also restore our legitimacy as the de facto governing party, following in the footsteps of leaders like Shin Ik-chi, Chough Byong-ok, Park Sun-cheon, Chung Il-hyung and Kim Dae-jung," Chough said upon being elected.

"I will lead the victory in next year's general election, by expanding the party power through strict reforms based on steel-like unity and recruiting new talent. In addition, I will take the lead in the second vote of an independent counsel bill vetoed by the President," he added.

Choo Mi-ae, Kim Kyung-jae, Chang Jae-shik and Kim Young-hwan, following Chough in the voting, and were elected as permanent members of the central committee. The candidates got 2,151, 1,199, 1,150 and 888 votes, respectively.

The new collective leadership elected Friday is to lead the MDP until the general election, to be held in next April.

Three other candidates -- Lee Hyup, Kim Young-jin and Chang Sung-min -- obtained only 645, 581 and 277 votes, respectively.

At the Friday convention, the MDP also approved the revised party platform, which read, "The party will push for the introduction of a presidential system with decentralized power to prevent the excesses of an imperial presidency. Under the circumstances, the system of a powerful prime minister could first be implemented, whose status could be bolstered later through a revision of the Constitution." (Kim Chang-kyun, ck-kim@chosun.com )