South Korea's ruling party won a landslide victory in elections for leaders of major cities and provinces, official results showed Thursday (June 2), giving new president Yoon Suk-yeol a significant boost.
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Yoon Suk-yeol's People Power Party (PPP) won 12 of the 17 main positions in the mayoral and provincial governorship elections, which were held on Wednesday.
The current mayor of the capital, Seoul, Oh Se-hoon (PPP), was re-elected with 59% of the vote, while Park Heong-joon (PPP) was re-elected mayor of Busan, the country's second largest city, with 66.4% of the vote.
An avowed anti-feminist and political novice, Yoon Suk-yeol won the March presidential election by 0.7 points over his leftist rival Lee Jae-myung, the narrowest margin ever obtained.
He thanked the South Koreans on Thursday for the
“success”
of these elections.
"I want to see the results of this election as the will of the people to revive the economy and better take care of people's livelihood
," said spokesman Kang In-sun, quoting his remarks.
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Public opinion has turned away from former Democratic Party (DP) Chairman Moon Jae-in and his administration, blamed for soaring housing prices in Seoul, which jumped nearly 120% during his tenure. .
The DP, which won 14 of the mayoral and gubernatorial posts in the last election in 2018, this time around only won five key posts, including three in its southern stronghold, Jeolla.
The party is struggling with internal divisiveness after a call for reform from rising star and caretaker leader Park Ji-hyun following the presidential election defeat and allegations of harassment and sexual assault within the party. party in recent years.
“We received our second punishment after the presidential election
,” Park Ji-hyun said.
“The results were worse than we thought”
.
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In partial legislative elections, the PPP won five of the seven seats to be filled in the National Assembly, where the DP nevertheless retains the majority.