S. Korea Party Picks Kim Despite Vote for Rebel

A ruling party rebel who charged that President Roh Tae Woo had rigged a convention against him polled a third of the votes Tuesday but failed to deny Kim Young Sam, a once-purged opposition leader, the presidential nomination of South Korea’s Establishment.

Kim won 4,418, or 66.6% of the 6,632 valid votes, while Lee Jong Chan, 56, who boycotted the convention in protest, polled 2,214.

Just five years ago, Kim was tear-gassed, manhandled, shoved into a riot police van and held incommunicado for five hours during a street demonstration demanding an end to authoritarian rule. But on Tuesday, he mentioned only briefly his battle for democracy as an opposition leader.

“I learned valuable lessons in the struggle for democracy for the last 40 years, and I will use this valuable experience to achieve complete democracy,” Kim told more than 6,000 delegates attending the Democratic Liberal Party convention. He stressed two other goals: to “achieve a second economic takeoff and bring about national unification within the 1990s.”

Kim has “devoted his entire life to the nation, making enormous contributions to the development of parliamentary democracy,” said Roh, whose predecessor had purged Kim from politics.

In 1987, Kim finished second to Roh in a four-way presidential election, but in 1990 he formed a new ruling party with his former foe to give the president a majority in the National Assembly.

Ending 31 years of ruling parties run by former generals, Kim’s nomination marked a historic moment for South Korea. Even Kim Dae Jung, who is expected to be nominated next Tuesday as the opposition Democratic Party’s candidate, praised the event.

“That civilian candidates are to vie for the presidency is a step forward for democracy,” a spokesman for Kim Dae Jung said.

But Lee’s threat to run independently for president in December and a burst of protests calling for the ruling party’s dissolution soured Kim Young Sam’s arrival at the top of the Establishment.

More than 50,000 students--the largest turnout in a year--roamed through downtown Seoul for four hours, disrupting traffic and forcing shops to close early. Acrid pepper gas, a virulent form of tear gas, filled the streets.

In Kwangju, an opposition stronghold 170 miles south of Seoul, about 5,000 students hurled rocks and firebombs at police, the news agency Yonhap said.