Seoul Mayor and Busan Mayor By-elections Resulted in Disastrous Failure of South Korea's Ruling Party

　　China News Service, Seoul, April 8 (Reporter Zeng Nai) In the by-elections for the mayor of Seoul and the mayor of Busan, the candidate of the National Power Party, the largest opposition party in South Korea, overwhelmed the candidate of the ruling party to win.

　　On April 7, South Korea launched a by-election vote for local government leaders and members of parliament, involving 21 positions or seats of parliament, including the mayor of Seoul and the mayor of Busan.

Last year, the then Mayor of Seoul Park Won-soon committed suicide, and the then Mayor of Busan, Oh Ju-dun, resigned due to a sexual harassment scandal.

　　In the early morning of the 8th, the results of the by-election were announced.

In the by-election for the mayor of Seoul, Wu Se-hoon, candidate of the National Power Party, the largest opposition party, won victory in 25 districts of Seoul, and finally defeated the ruling party’s Democratic Party’s candidate Park Young-sun with a high rate of 57.5%.

　　This is the first time since the progressive representative, Park Won-soon, became the mayor of Seoul in 2011. It is the first time that the city of Seoul has been held in power by conservative forces again in 10 years.

Yonhap News Agency analyzed that: "Seoul City's political landscape has undergone earth-shaking changes."

　　In the Busan mayor by-election, the opposition conservatives also won in an overwhelming manner: the National Forces candidate Park Hyung-yu got 62.97% of the votes, much higher than the Democratic Party candidate Kim Young-chun's 34.42%.

This is the first time that conservatives have regained the post of Mayor of Busan after a lapse of four years.

　　In addition, in the other 19 by-elections, the Conservative Party won 13 in one fell swoop.

　　The voter turnouts in the by-elections for the mayors of Seoul and Busan reached 58.2% and 52.7% respectively. This is the first time that the voter turnouts for the by-elections of local government leaders in South Korea have exceeded 50%.

　　The analysis believes that, mainly due to the recent property market turmoil and the “land speculation” scandal by the planning department staff, the public’s support for the ruling party has fallen sharply, leading to the ruling party’s fiasco; Governance and even the presidential election have a certain impact.

(Finish)