Kim chose Chang Dae-whan, 50-year-old president of the Maeil Business Newspaper, following parliament's rejection last week of his previous nominee for the post, a theologian who would have been the country's first female prime minister.

The prime minister plays a largely ceremonial role, but would take over if the president died or was incapacitated.

"My task is to bring (to government) the voices of the domestic and international business world at a difficult time in the world economy," Chang told the Yonhap news agency.

On Thursday, voters delivered a rebuke to Kim's minority government, giving the opposition a triumph in by-elections seen as a litmus test for the December presidential race.

Capitalizing on anger over scandals surrounding Kim's government and family, the centre-right Grand National Party swept 11 of the 13 open seats.

With 139 seats, the GNP -- already the largest bloc in the 273-member National Assembly -- now has a clear majority.

The ruling Millennium Democratic Party won only two, both in its traditional southwestern base in Cholla Province. President Kim founded the MDP, but left it in April as investigators closed in on influence-peddling scandals implicating two of his sons.

"The GNP will be in the driver's seat on legislative issues, as well as general political matters," said Lim Seong-ho, a political analyst at Kyung Hee University in Seoul. "This is not cohabitation, but coexistence between enemies," he said of the new political arrangement.

(China Daily August 10, 2002)