South Korea's leading party voted to pick between the country's most powerful woman politician and a former business magnate in a primary yesterday, where the winner is certain to emerge as front-runner for the presidency.

 

 

Tens of thousands of delegates, ordinary members of the Grand National Party (GNP), and selected citizens cast their votes across the country at 248 polling stations, said the nation's election watchdog.

 

The results of the GNP primary will be known today. The election for the president of the world's 12th largest economy is on December 19.

 

Polls indicate Lee Myung-bak, a former top executive at the Hyundai Group who was later Seoul's mayor, is the favorite. Voting in Seoul, Lee said he was confident of being on the ballot in the December main race. "I hope to be having a good dream on December 19," he said.

 

But Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the iron ruler who pushed South Korea on the road to economic prowess in the 1960s and 70s, has almost closed the gap.

 

She expressed concern about voting irregularity, after news reports said a party member in the southern port city of Busan was caught photographing her ballot.

 

In a sign of the ferocity of the rivalry between the two, officials from both campaigns said they would be up through last night to guard the ballot boxes from cheating. Counting does not start until this afternoon.

 

About two out of three voters would pick either Lee or Park to be president, recent polls said, while the top left-leaning candidate is supported by only about one in every 20 voters.

 

South Koreans want their next president to take a business-friendly approach to the economy and a harder line toward the North, surveys indicate.

 

They have also grown weary of left-of-center President Roh Moo-hyun, who is perceived as failing to stabilize an uncertain labor situation or cool down an overheated real estate market.

 

Just ahead of the primary, prosecutors launched a probe into a possible shady land deal by Lee some 12 years ago. Lee denies any wrongdoing and many in his camp accuse Roh of using his influence to damage Lee's chances of election.

 

Widely praised during his time as mayor for projects to add green spaces to the urban sprawl of the capital, the 65-year-old Lee's popularity rests heavily on his image as a person who can get things done.

 

Park has a built-in support base due to her father, former President Park Chung-hee, who took power in a 1961 coup and drove the country to an economic powerhouse.

 

Shot dead by his spy chief in 1979, the former president is a polarizing figure, seen by many Koreans as the country's best president while others revile him as a despot who tried to destroy democracy.

 

Park, 55, who is trying to become the country's first woman president, acted as the country's "first lady" after her mother was killed by an assassin's bullet meant for her father.

 

(China Daily August 20, 2007)