THE RULING part of the South Korean President, Mr Kim Young sam, yesterday was assured of controlling parliament though he lost his party's overall parliamentary majority after elections which dealt a humiliating blow to the opposition leader, Mr Kim Dae jung.
In a supreme irony, what opposition parties called "the wind from the North" gave the edge to Mr Kim Young sam, whom they blame for letting North South Korean relations fall to Cold War levels.
North Korea sent armed troops into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas in three consecutive forays over the weekend in violation of the 1953 armistice agreement, a scare which persuaded South Koreans to support the government in a time of threat.
With two seats undecided, the ruling New Korea Party (NKP) took 121 districts, trailed by Mr Kim Daejung's main opposition National Congress for New Politics (NCNP) with 66, televised election commission tabulations showed.
The conservative United Liberal Democrats (ULD) won 39 districts, the minor Democratic Party (DP) nine and independents 16.
The commission gave 39.1 per cent of the popular vote to the NKP, 26.3 per cent to the NCNP and 19.6 per cent to the ULD. The tallies, boosted by 46 seats allocated on a proportional basis less the two undecided seats, gave the NKP 139 seats, the NCNP 79, the ULD 50 and the DP 15, with independents holding 16.
The count left the ruling party a few seats short of an absolute majority it had commanded in the 299 seat unicameral National Assembly. But party spokesmen said they were not worried about picking up sympathetic independents.
"The outcome appears to be far better than we had expected," a NKP spokesman, Mr Chang Dasaro, said, crediting the unexpected boost to the scare from North Korea - which saved the party and gave it its first victory in Seoul.
Before the North Korea's weekend armistice violations, the NKP's chances had plummeted because of a high profile presidential palace corruption scandal.
A numerical majority entails 150 seats, leaving the NKP 11 short.
Early newspaper editions today called it a "bloody Thursday" for the NCNP leader, Mr Kim Daejung (72), who failed to even gain a seat in parliament, because of being on the proportional, not the electoral list.
His party bitterly accused the government of cashing in on the North Korean scare. The government has overused the DMZ incident for this election," said the party leader, Mr Kim Sanghyun.
A record low 63.9 per cent of the electorate took part in the voting. Many people chose to get away for the national holiday instead of voting.
"I think [the North Korean leader] Kim Jong Il helped the NKP a lot," a political science professor, Dr Lee Ho Jae of Korea University said.
The election outcome was a reminder of what happened in Taiwan's presidential election last month when the incumbent, Mr Lee Teng hui, won after China scared Taiwan's voters with missile tests in the narrow Taiwan Strait.
The outcome was seen here as a win on the mid term score sheet for Mr Kim Young Sam's three year old government, whose theme was "reforms amid stability".
The strong showing for the conservative ULD, headed by the former Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) chief, Mr Kim Jong Pil, was boosted by areas loyal to two jailed former presidents, Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo.
A fellow coup colleague, Hur Hwa Pyong, won his seat as an independent running from his jail cell.
. The UN Security Council yesterday urged Pyongyang to end a week old violation of the 43 year old Korean armistice agreement, but watered down the protest because of China's reservations.