By Yoon Won-sup
Staff Reporter

The Uri Party suffered a crushing defeat in Saturday’s by-elections as opposition parties swept most of the chief posts in local governments, according to the National Election Commission Sunday.

Of the one mayoral position and four county chief posts up for grabs, the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) and the minor Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) won two each, with the governing Uri Party saving face with one win.

The GNP’s Kang Suk-jin won the post of county headman in Kochang, South Kyongsang Province while Yoo Hwa-sun gained the position of mayor in Paju, Kyonggi Province. Hwang Ju-hong and Park Hee-hyun of the MDP became county chiefs in Kangjin and Haenam counties, South Cholla Province, the party’s traditional stronghold. The Uri Party’s Moon Kyung-hyun narrowly won a hotly contested race for the head of Chorwon in Kangwon Province.

Of the seven legislative seats in local governments at stake, the conservative GNP secured five while the MDP took one. One seat went to an independent candidate. The governing party failed to win a single victory in the elections for the local legislatures.

Experts say the elections were locally limited in scale and thus cannot be used to determine a national trend. Nonetheless, the results clearly show the ruling camp should expect some political setbacks with its current low level of popularity.

A recent series of polls show that Roh’s popularity, which once soared to over 70 percent, has plummeted to below 30 percent amid the prolonged economic slump and the aborted plan to move the capital out of Seoul.

However, the Uri Party tried to play down its defeat in the elections. Lee Bu-young, chairman of the party, said, ``While the results of the by-elections do fall short of our expectations, we are not going to place too much political significance on them because they are just local elections.’’

Saturday’s elections have also largely been interpreted as a victory for the MDP, as it easily beat the ruling party in the two posts on its home turf in the Cholla provinces after being reduced to a nine-seat minor party in the national parliament in the April elections.

``We made a firm step towards rising again in the Oct. 30 by-elections,’’ MDP spokesman Jang Jeon-hyung said. ``The election results mean residents in the Cholla provinces have totally turned their backs on the ruling Uri Party.’’

After the short-lived euphoria of its resounding victory in the April general elections, the governing Uri Party experienced a crushing defeat in the mayoral and gubernatorial elections in early June, losing all of the top posts of the four local governments to the GNP.

Voter turnout totaled 33.1 percent, 4.6 percentage points higher than the June 5 by-elections, election officials said.

yoonwonsup@koreatimes.co.kr