
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 28, 1991                   TAG: 9103280155
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA                                LENGTH: Short

S. KOREA'S RULING PARTY BIG WINNER

President Roh Tae-woo's governing party won a resounding victory on Tuesday, claiming more than half the seats in South Korea's first local elections in three decades.

The election was the first in a series intended to return some measure of local autonomy to the nation's cities and towns after two and a half decades of military rule, in which virtually every decision had been made by officials in Seoul.

But it was also the first test of Roh's year-old Democratic Liberal Party, an uneasy coalition between the president and two of his three biggest political rivals.

The results announced Wednesday also seemed to mark a setback for South Korea's best-known opposition leader, Kim Dae-jung. Kim, who lost the presidency to Roh in a three-way election in 1987, was counting on Tuesday's election to build a political base for the next presidential contest, expected late next year or early in 1993.

But according to the preliminary results announced Wednesday, his party won only 18 percent of the local council posts, and the vast majority of those were in his home province, Cholla, in the southern part of the country.

by CNB