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Saenuri Party leader Kim Moo-sung offers to step down over election debacle

April 13, 2016

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SEOUL, April 14 (Yonhap) — Saenuri Party leader Rep. Kim Moo-sung offered to step down on Thursday, taking responsibility for a crushing defeat in Wednesday’s elections seen as a crucial litmus test of voter sentiment ahead of next year’s presidential election.

“I will resign as the party leader to take responsibility for the resounding defeat in the general elections for the 20th National Assembly,” he said during a ceremony marking the disbandment of the party’s election campaign committee.

Rep. Kim Tae-ho, a leading member of the party’s decision-making Supreme Council, and the party’s secretary-general Rep. Hwang Jin-ha also offered to bow out, presaging a dismantlement of the current party leadership.

In the parliamentary elections, the ruling party bagged just 122 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, failing to maintain its legislative majority. Its rival Minjoo Party of Korea clinched 123 seats while the minority opposition People’s Party won 38 seats, emerging as a new political force to be reckoned with.