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The opposition Grand National Party on Sunday held a vote at 248 polling stations nationwide to pick its presidential candidate. The camps of both GNP presidential hopefuls Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye were confident of victory. Lee¡¯s camp predicted the former Seoul mayor would win the primary with 87,374 votes, 12,580 ahead of Park¡¯s predicted 74,794. Park¡¯s camp expected her to lead with 83,491 votes, 6.3 percent ahead of Lee¡¯s 73,358.
The GNP asked the National Election Commission to take charge of the voting, the first time the NEC has overseen a party primary. The NEC collected polling boxes after the voting ended Sunday evening and moved them to the gymnastics arena Seoul¡¯s Olympic Park, where the party¡¯s national convention will be held. It will start counting the votes at 12:30 p.m. Monday and announce the result at 4:30 p.m.
Turnout was estimated at 70.8 percent, with 131,084 out of 185,080 electoral college members participating. The turnout is unusually high. It was the same as in the 2002 presidential election, but unlike in general and presidential elections, polling stations were installed only in larger administrative units of cities and counties. The spokesman for the GNP¡¯s election committee, Choi Ku-sik, said the high turnout indicates a widespread hope for the GNP to win the presidential election in December.
By region, North Gyeongsang Province had the highest turnout at 90.2 percent or 9,637 out of 10,679 electoral college members, followed by Busan with 80.2 percent, Ulsan with 79.8 percent and Jeju with 79.4 percent. The party chose three agencies to conduct an opinion poll that forms 20 percent of the result.
GNP spokeswoman Na Kyung-won said the GNP ¡°finally completed the long 200-day procedures for the primary, which began on Feb. 1 with the launch of its Committee for Victory in the 2007 Presidential Election. ¡°The remaining task for the party is to win the 2007 presidential election through reconciliation and take power to help the nation enjoy prosperity again and join the ranks of advanced countries,¡± she added.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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