Rep. Chung Sye-kyun, former leader and senior advisor of the main opposition Democratic United Party, won the key electoral race in Jongno, the political core of the nation’s capital.

The fourth-term liberal lawmaker defeated his powerful right-wing rival Rep. Hong Sa-duk by 6 percentage points, gaining 52 percent of respondents’ votes.

His outstanding result in the area was a positive for the entire left wing bloc, not only because the battle was expected to be one of the fiercest but also because Chung is one of the party’s presidential hopefuls.

The Jongno race has traditionally acted as a bellwether in most elections and the leading parties fielded their top-ranking members there to display their political influence, especially ahead of the presidential race at the year’s end.

Chung thus left his longtime constituency in the southwestern province of North Jeolla to enter the uncertain race and win the strategic area back from the ruling party.

The north-central district has long been in favor of conservative politicians, except for the victory of liberal former President Roh Moo-hyun in the 1988 by-election.

The DUP runner earlier predicted a hard battle but nevertheless claimed to have a chance as ruling party Rep. Park Jin had achieved poor results for the area over the past three terms.

He also said that the public sentiment in Jongno largely reflected the general voters’ determination to put an end to the current Lee Myung-bak administration.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)