Unpopular South Korean president quits his party

SEOUL, Feb 22 (Reuters) South Korea's unpopular president said today he would quit the liberal Uri Party to give it a chance to boost its sagging support ahead of presidential elections in December that the opposition looks likely to win.

In contrast, President Roh Moo-hyun accepted an offer by the country's first woman prime minister to resign and return to Uri to help with its revival, a spokesman for the presidential office said.

Roh, whose approval rating of about 15 percent is only slightly higher than Uri's, had earlier offered to leave the fast-fragmenting group if it would help unite liberal forces.

''I hope my quitting the party will provide an opportunity to improve our political climate,'' the presidential office quoted Roh as saying.

''As long as a few members within the party demand I quit the party, I need to clear the basis of conflict within the group,'' he said.

Roh's office said he had verbally accepted Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook's offer to step down but had urged her to delay her departure until March 6, the spokesman added.

Still with a year left in office, Roh is widely considered a lame duck with few opportunities to influence developments.

Earlier this month, a group of 23 lawmakers quit Uri, saying it had failed. The defections reduced the party, once the largest in parliament, to second-rank status with greatly reduced power.

''I think he doesn't want to be a burden on the party,'' said Yang Seung-ham, professor of political science at Seoul's Yonsei University.

''His leaving may help himself and the Uri Party to act more freely,'' Yang said.

Opinion polls show the conservative Grand National Party, the largest group in the one-chamber parliament since Uri's defections, as clear front runner to provide the next president.

Leading liberal hopefuls currently score only 1 per cent to 5 percent of voter support, polls indicate.

Roh has lobbied, so far unsuccessfully, for a constitutional change that would allow future presidents to serve two terms, instead of the current single-term system imposed in the 1980s to prevent a return to strongman rule.

Previous South Korean presidents, who had created parties as vehicles essentially to put them and keep them in power, had to stand by as their single term ebbed away and their personal support network collapsed.

REUTERS BDP HT1835