South Korea party frontrunners brawl to bitter end

SEOUL, Aug 18 (Reuters) The front-runners in South Korea's presidential race traded barbs today a day ahead of the conservative party primary to pick its candidate, who will be the favourite to win the December election.

The two leaders to be the opposition Grand National Party's (GNP) candidate are far ahead in opinion polls of all other contenders for the presidency, but have spent much of the primary campaign trying to destroy each other's reputation.

In the last few days Park Geun-hye -- daughter of the iron ruler who pushed South Korea on the road to economic prowess in the 1960s and 70s -- has narrowed the gap on her rival Lee Myung-bak, a former CEO of Hyundai Construction who later became mayor of Seoul.

Party members go to the polls tomorrow to vote on a field of four candidates including Lee and Park. The result of a telephone poll of randomly selected citizens taken later that day will be added to the party votes to elect the winner, who will be declared on Monday.

The conservative opposition is fighting to return to power after two liberal presidents. Its nominee will be the person to beat in the presidential race, with polls showing the top left-of-centre candidates barely able to scrape up 5 per cent support.

Park tried to scare off primary voters by calling Lee ''the shaky candidate''. Lee has faced a probe in recent weeks about a murky land deal in 1995 and other top executives at Hyundai Group of his era have faced corruption charges.

''If we pick a time-bomb candidate who might go off any time, the people and the party will have to continue living with the bitterness of the past decade,'' Park was quoted as saying today by the Yonhap news agency.

Lee has denied any wrongdoing and said he was confident of victory.

''The people and the voters are capable of seeing through all the negative attacks,'' he said, branding the charges against him a conspiracy to bring down the unbeatable candidate before he gets to the main election.

The GNP leadership is concerned the mud-slinging might ruin what should be certain victory in December's election.

Left-leaning candidates have been hard pressed to find a party to run for, with the former ruling Uri Party, which held the most seats just three years ago, ending a slow disintegration at the weekend by agreeing to disband.

''Have Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye shown they are capable of taking over power?'' the country's largest daily, Chosun Ilbo, asked in an editorial today.

''The dogfight in mud'' that the two frontrunners have fought may be their true nature, the daily said. ''At this rate, whoever becomes the candidate, it may be difficult for the person to get elected president on Dec. 19.'' REUTERS SKB RK1435