Ruling party head vows efforts to win general, presidential elections

LOS ANGELES, July 31 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's ruling party chief has vowed to lead the Saenuri Party to landslide victories in next year's general elections and in the presidential election in 2017.

Rep. Kim Moo-sung, chairman of the Saenuri Party, made the remarks Friday at a meeting with South Korean residents living in Los Angeles, the final stop of his nine-day trip to the United States, which started last Saturday.

"I will do my best to make the administration of President Park Geun-hye a success," Kim said.

He said he will help the ruling party secure a large majority in the 200-member unicameral National Assembly in next year's general elections and win the presidential election in December 2017.

Kim, a five-term lawmaker, has seen his popularity jump, especially after he led the party to victory in April's by-elections, with a voter survey putting him ahead of all possible candidates in the next presidential election.

He also said that the government plans to change history textbooks that qualified private publishers are currently making into government-designated textbooks. Kim said that the purpose of doing so is to make sure young students are not swayed by what he claims is liberals' biased perspective on history.

Earlier in Washington, Kim met with Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), where he asked the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee if the U.S. could put pressure on Japan to make a sincere apology over its wartime wrongdoings.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to give a speech on Aug. 15 to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, which analysts say is not likely to contain Tokyo's apology over its sexual enslavement of Korean women during the war.

In response, Royce said that the U.S. will make efforts to push for Japan to include such an apology in the so-called Abe Statement, according to a Saenuri Party official.
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