At the party’s national convention on Saturday in Goyang City in Gyeonggi Province, Kim, 73, received 56.5 percent of the vote.
After South Korea’s Constitutional Court declared him inviolably in full force by declaring martial law on December 3, the election was sparked by his dramatic impeachment.
The decision forced the nation to cast an early ballot to elect Yoon’s replacement and ended his presidency.
Former Labour Party official under Yoon and governor of Gyeonggi Province in South Korea from 2006 to 2014, Kim retired from that position and later moved to the conservative camp.
Kim will face Lee Jae-myung, a candidate for the liberal Democratic Party, in a poll conducted on Monday that showed Kim to have 13% support, compared to Kim’s. Lee Jae-myung is still the clear frontrunner.
If elected, Kim has pledged to put business-friendly policies into place. In his acceptance speech, he promised to take a tough line against North Korea, establish incentives for businesses, and promote innovation and science. He also promised to adopt a radical conservative outlook for the nation.
He also made a pledge to improve laws that support young people and the underprivileged, citing his own experiences as a labour and democracy activist while he was a student, for which he was jailed and kicked out.
He claimed that “I have never abandoned the weakest among us in the lowest places.”
However, a court ruling this week shook the election, overturning a lower court’s acquittal that found him guilty of breaking election law in a previous race, and raised questions about Lee’s eligibility to run for president.
When a new ruling will be made, it was unknown when the Supreme Court sent the case back to an appeals court.
Source: Aljazeera
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