The 55-year-old replaces Lee Kwang-jae, who was stripped of his post in January after the Supreme Court in Seoul refused to clear him of corruption charges relating to charges of receiving illegal political funds from Korean businessmen.

Choi, the former chief executive and President of the Korean MBC network, is now expected to be part of Pyeongchang's delegation due to travel to Lausanne for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) technical presentation on May 18 and 19.

Choi, who attended high school in Chuncheon in Gangwon Province, beat his Grand National Party rival Ohm Ki-young, who succeeded him as the head of MBC having previously been one of Korea's highest-profile television stars who presented the primetime current affairs programme News Desk.

But the election was tainted by allegations of election violations.

Ohm was accused of targetting 200,000 supporters of Pyeongchang's Olympic bid by tricking the head of a group campaigning for the Games into giving him the list.

"We had a grand meeting in February, where we disclosed the signature of about one million people who wanted to host the sports event at Pyeongchang," said Ji Jin-ho, the organiser of the Olympic group.

"Ohm showed up at our event and asked me to hand him the list saying that he would like to have a look at it.

"I gave him the information of 200,000 [people].

"But he did not tell us that the list would be used to make phone calls for his own campaign.

"Ohm has taken advantage of our zeal for the Olympics."

Opponents of Ohm had warned that they would have asked for the election to be held again if he had won.

But in the end, Choi won after polling 51.1 per cent of the vote with Ohm securing 46.6 per cent.

"This is a victory for Gangwon residents' pride," Choi said.

"I will serve Gangwon residents as if they are the sky.

"We now need to mend the conflicts large and small that we had during the election campaign in the name of unity.

"I will become the governor for Gangwon, not the Democratic Party."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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