By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter




The ruling Uri Party has tried hard to find new blood including former Justice Minister Kang Kum-sil and business leaders in an effort to win the Seoul mayoralty in the upcoming local elections, party sources said.

Rep. Kim Hyuk-kyu, chief of the governing party’s ad hoc committee for recruiting candidates, said he met the first-ever female justice minister earlier this week to persuade her to join the election on the party’s ticket.

Kang, 48, has been constantly receiving the offer from the ruling camp since she stepped down from her Cabinet post in 2004.

``I reminded Kang that she would not have known her future as a justice minister when she first started to study for the bar examination back in the 1970s. I persuaded her to accept her political career as another destiny,’’ Kim said.

However, he left the slim possibility that she could accept the repeated calls, saying ``Kang politely refused the offer, but said she would call me back after thinking about it.’’

In recent polls on potential candidates for the Seoul mayoralty, Kang topped the list with some 19 percent among ruling camp figures. But she still lost the lead to Rep. Hong Joon-pyo of the largest opposition party, the Grand National Party (GNP) with 22 percent.

Unlike the conservative GNP that has several senior legislators including Hong, Maeng Hyung-kyu and Park Jin, who announced their early bid for the mayoral post, the ruling party has been struggling with a lack of competent candidates.

Kim said he also met with several CEOs including Samsung Electronics vice chairman Yoon Jong-yong, who has led the nation’s largest enterprise, and Yuhan-Kimberly CEO-President Moon Kook-hyun, who is famous for his environmentally friendly business management, over the same issue.

Also, the lawmaker met LG Electronics vice chairman Kim Ssang-soo.

Party sources said Hyun Myung-kwan, former vice chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), has been considering running for the governorship of Cheju Island on the ruling party’s ticket.

A former CEO of Samsung Corporation, international trading arm of Samsung Group, Hyun left the FKI post in February last year.

Political analysts say the surging popularity of outgoing Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak, a leading presidential hopeful of the GNP, has stimulated the ruling camp to feel out business leaders about the mayoral race.

Among 144 ruling party legislators, only Rep. Lee Kye-ahn, former president of Hyundai Motor, and Rep. Min Byung-doo, former political editor of the Munhwa Ilbo, a vernacular daily, have so far unveiled their wish to run for the party’s internal race for the post.

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