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Conservatives Head 3 Major Parties By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter As a result of the election of former Gyeonggi Governor Sohn Hak-kyu as chairman of the United New Democratic Party (UNDP) Thursday, three of the nation's major political parties are led by former and incumbent members of the conservative Grand National Party (GNP). Former GNP Chairman Lee Hoi-chang, who unsuccessfully ran for president twice on the GNP's ticket and once as an independent, is preparing to launch another conservative party early next month. Lee and his followers held a promoters' meeting in Seoul Thursday. On the same day, the liberal,...

/begin my excerpt Armitage, "N. Korea to Push Ahead with Nuclear Test This Year" (Washington = Yonhap News) Cho Bok-rae = Richard Armitage, the former Deputy Secretary of State, commented on Sept. 21, "N. Korea will push ahead with nuclear test this year. If it happens, everything including the issue of wartime command control would be brought back to square one, and reevaluated," according to a lawmaker of Hannara Party(conservative opposition) visiting U.S. Mr. Armitage gave his view, saying that it is his personal opinion, while meeting some lawmakers from Hannara delegation made up of Lee Sang-deuk, Vice Chairman of...

The left figure shows the electoral breakdown for 2004 national legislative election in northern part of Seoul. The ruling party did particularly well in this part of Seoul. Yellow represents the ruling party's gain and blue, the conservative opposition. In that contest, two thirds of legislative districts in entire Seoul went for the ruling party. Legislative districts are subdivision of an administrative district. The right figures show administrative districts which went for the opposition in Seoul's mayoral contest. The average margin for victory is over 2:1 in favor of the conservative opposition. Additionally, the opposition had the clean sweep of...