S. Korean Race Narrows as Ruling Party Entrant Quits

Kim Young Sam, a political leader who until two years ago had spent most of his adult life in the opposition, Sunday became the probable standard-bearer for South Korea’s ruling party in December’s presidential election when his only opponent announced he was bowing out of the race.

Kim’s rival, Lee Jong Chan, 56, announced that he will not be a candidate for the nomination at the ruling Democratic Liberal Party’s convention Tuesday.

After an emergency meeting of party leaders Sunday night, however, President Roh Tae Woo called Lee’s announcement a violation of party rules and declared that the 6,904 delegates to the convention will be called upon to cast ballots, as scheduled, to choose between Kim, the former opposition “fighter for democracy” who was purged from politics between 1980 and 1987, and Lee, a moderate Establishment politician.

Condemning Lee’s move as “damaging to the party,” Roh said the Seoul national assemblyman will be punished.

Early today, Lee had not yet clarified if he would go through the procedures necessary to withdraw. On Sunday, he hinted he might bolt the party and run for president on his own.

Tuesday’s convention was to have marked the first time in the history of South Korean ruling parties that a presidential candidate would have been chosen in a ballot. But Lee’s announcement--in effect, a concession of defeat--made the balloting meaningless.

Lee made public his decision after Roh spent more than two hours Saturday night trying to persuade him not to quit the race. Yet in making his announcement, Lee implied that Roh had tried to manipulate the nomination contest.

Earlier, top political insiders confirmed that Roh had long ago promised Kim the ruling party’s nomination this year in exchange for Kim’s bringing his National Assembly followers into the ruling camp in 1990. That action by Kim, 64, and by another former opposition figure, Kim Jong Pil, gave Roh’s party a majority in the Assembly.

On Friday, the Unification National Party, a brand-new outfit created earlier this year by Chung Ju Yung, 76, founder of the Hyundai business conglomerate, nominated Chung to run for president as South Korea’s “Ross Perot candidate.” And the roster of presidential contenders will be rounded out next week when the major opposition Democratic Party is expected to pick Kim Dae Jung, 68, as its candidate.

The anticipated race between the two Kims is likely to exacerbate a bitter personal rivalry and intensify regional antipathy between the residents of the southeast Kyongsang region, Kim Young Sam’s base, and those of the southwest Cholla area, Kim Dae Jung’s home. A succession of governments since 1961 has displayed favoritism to the Kyongsang region at the expense of Cholla in bureaucratic appointments and economic development projects.

Voters in both regions have consistently cast ballots in landslide proportions against candidates hailing from the rival region.

His expected nomination makes Kim Young Sam the favorite to succeed Roh, who is limited by the constitution to one five-year term. But National Assembly Speaker Park Joon Kyu, a key Democrat Liberal leader, predicted in an interview that the ruling party will face a struggle to elect its candidate, even in the kind of three-way race that’s shaping up.

Park said that even with the government wielding its influence, “If the government candidate loses, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”