hankyoreh

Though surrounded by doubt and speculation about possible financial misdeeds, Lee Myung-bak was nominated as the main opposition Grand National Party’s presidential candidate at the party’s convention, held at the Olympic Gymnastics Stadium on August 20. The two main opposition candidates, Lee and his rival Park Geun-hye, fought in non-stop battle to the finish as the polls closed yesterday evening, with each launching accusations in a bid to discredit the other.

Lee garnered 81,084 votes of the total 163,617, accounting for 49.5%, defeating his archrival Park Geun-hye with 78,632 votes(48.1%) by a mere 1.4% margin. The two fringe hopefuls-Won Hee-ryong and Hong Joon-pyo-took 2,398(1.5%) and 1,503(1%) respectively. The voting, which was supervised by National Election Commission, took place on August 19 at 238 polling stations across the nation.

In a acceptance speech, Lee pledged to unite the party in the spirit of cooperation and reconciliation. Lee emphasized, "Now is time for all of us should get united to achieve our long-cherished dream of retaking power".

Park Geun-hye, in her concession speech, graciously accepted her defeat and promised she would play her part to help the party band together to win the coming presidential election. Park gave her congratulations to Lee.

The party’s primary was unprecedented in the way it was carried out, as it included nationwide televised debates and voting by the general public.

Voter turnout was expected to have played a major role in determining the winner of yesterday’s primary and so it did, with turnout recorded at a rate of over 70 percent, according to sources within the party. Age was also a factor as Lee was generally more popular among younger voters with Park winning popularity from older voters, a factor largely seen as a holdover from her the time of her father’s administration.

Park is the eldest daughter of the former dictator Park Chung-hee and formerly chaired the GNP. She rose to power in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis is was credited with furthering the nation’s economic developement, but failed to gain enough votes to win the party’s nomination.

Park has trailed Lee throughout the primary, though the gap narrowed significantly in the past week, following the prosecution’s announcement that it would reveal all of the evidence it has collected in a land speculation scandal, which many took as potentially implicating Lee.

The two main contenders have fought fiercely throughout the campaign, with concerns by many within the GNP that the internal rivalry would ultimately harm party politics post-primary, but that remains to be seen in the weeks now leading to the presidential election slated for December 19.

In particular, Park has harshly attacked Lee for what she terms his unethical wealth. Lee has been under attack from the general public and, most recently, the prosecution for alleged land speculation involving a lucrative piece of land in southern Seoul’s wealthy Dogok neighborhood. Though the land is owned by two people connected to Lee, Lee’s brother and brother-in-law, Lee is presumed to be the real owner of the property.

Lee is the former Seoul mayor and once served as the chairman of Hyundai Engineering & Construction, whose experience in business and finance was seen as an advantage in an election year in which economics is at the top of the list of voter concerns.

Going forward, Lee has said that he would reform the nation’s floundering economy and, if elected, plans to launch a large-scale canal project.

Lee has touted the project as one that aims to revive the tourism industry while improving transportation facilities. The canal, which would link Seoul to Busan, is similar to the smaller-scale project Lee carried out as Seoul mayor, when he served as the architect of a project to revitalize the Cheongye-cheon in central Seoul.

In his acceptance speech, Lee appealed to party members to rally behind him to capture power from the recently formed United New Democratic Party, or UNDP.

The UNDP, which has been fraught with its own kind of turmoil over the composition of the party, was formed with former Uri members and other liberal lawmakers and will begin its presidential primary in mid-September with the goal of choosing its candidate by mid-October.