South Korea ruling party boosts majority with key poll wins
Seoul: South Korea’s ruling party celebrated on Thursday after sailing through a key by-election test that increased its parliamentary majority despite lingering public anger over the handling of April’s Sewol ferry disaster.
President Park Geun-Hye’s Saenuri Party won 11 of an unprecedented 15 by-elections contested on Wednesday, leaving it with 158 legislators in the 300-seat National Assembly.
As with the local polls, the opposition had sought to make the by-elections a referendum on the Park administration’s handling of the Sewol disaster that claimed around 300 lives – most of them high school students.
Park’s popularity ratings plunged in the wake of the disaster, which was largely blamed on ineffective regulation and corporate greed.
“This is a people’s message that we must stop political bickerings and focus on improving people’s living standards”, Saenuri Party head Kim Moo-Sung told journalists.
NPAD spokesman Yoo Ki-Hong said the opposition party accepts the results “heavily and humbly.”
The polls were held on a working day, and voter turnout was low at just 32.9 per cent.
