The People Power Party nominated supreme council member Yang Hyang-ja as its candidate for Gyeonggi Province governor on May 2 for the June 3 local elections. Yang, a former Samsung Electronics executive, was elected to the National Assembly in 2020. She will face Democratic Party Rep. Choo Mi-ae.
The People Power Party announced on May 2 that Yang Hyang-ja, a member of its supreme council, was nominated as the candidate for Gyeonggi Province governor in the June 3 local elections. The primary was held from Thursday to Friday.
Yang joined Samsung Electronics in 1985 as a vocational high school graduate and rose to executive rank in 2014. She entered politics in 2016 after being recruited by then-Democratic Party leader Moon Jae-in and was elected to the National Assembly in 2020.
Gyeonggi Province is South Korea's most populous region with about 14 million residents. Yang will compete against Democratic Party Rep. Choo Mi-ae, a six-term lawmaker and former justice minister under the Moon administration.
Attention is on whether Yang will unify with New Reform Party candidate Cho Eung-chon. With this nomination, the PPP has finalized candidates for all 16 major provincial and metropolitan mayoral races nationwide. If Yang or Choo wins, she would be the first female governor of a metropolitan government.
