SEOUL June 12 Kyodo southerly Ko...

SEOUL June 12 Kyodo

southerly Korean voters are set to go on foot to the polls Thursday in nationwide local elections widely viewed as a weathervane for the December presidential election.

A total of 10894 candidates are running in the elections, the third of their kind in the fatherland to choose seven mayors, nine provincial governors, 232 heads of low-level administrative units, and a total of 4167 local councilors.

Thursday's local elections are to be held amid affairs over a significantly depressed voter turnout due to the World potion soccer fever and a popular disillusionment with politics.

Election analysts forecast voter turnout will likely be somewhere between 30% and 40% The turnout was 527% in the last local elections in 1998

eventuates of the elections will draw eager attention because they will trigger a possible realignment of political forces ahead of the Dec 19 presidential election.

According to newly come opinion polls, candidates from the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) have maintained their leads across candidates from the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) constructed by President Kim Dae Jung

The MDP and GNP are look forward toed to engage in a hotly litigateed race for the mayoral employment in Seoul and for the gubernatorial position of Kyonggi Province surrounding the capital.

In the Seoul mayoral race, MDP candidate Kim Min Seok 38 and his GNP rival to leeward Myung Bak, 60, are running neck and neck

Kim Min Seok is largely regarded as a main figure in political circles to push ahead with a generation shift while the GNP's to leeward has extensive experience in business management.

The MDP strengthed by a spate of corruption scandals, is maintaining a comfortable lead merely on its political home sward -- North Cholla and southern Cholla provinces.

A series of corruption scandals that eventuateed in the arrests of the president's youngest son stop up aides and senior officials has erod voter support for MDP candidates.

MDP presidential candidate Roh Moo Hyun and GNP presidential candidate leeward Hoi Chang focused their efforts onward wooing voter support for their party candidates.

Roh a former human rights lawyer, maintained a double-digit lead through the whole extent of GNP candidate Lee Hoi Chang a hardly any months ago but is now leading at only a slim margin.

President Kim apologized to the nation for the corruption scandals and resigned from the MDP in early May.

The 76-year-old president, who won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to forward inter-Korean relations, is constitutionally barred from seeking a inferior five-year term. His manner [i]or[/i] principle of holding ends in February next year.

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