Woo Sang-ho (politician)

Woo Sang-ho (Korean: 우상호, born 12 December 1962) is a South Korean activist and politician who served as the interim President of the Democratic Party since 7 June 2022 to 29 August 2022. He previously served as the parliamentary leader of the party from 2016 to 2017. He has been the Member of the National Assembly for Seodaemun 1st constituency from 2004 to 2008, and since 2012. Woo was born in Cheorwon, Gangwon, and raised in Seoul, where he attended Yongmoon High School. He joined student movements and took a crucial role during the June Struggle, while studying Korean language at Yonsei University. Following his graduation in 1989, he joined politics during 1995 local elections. He firstly contested in 2000 election for Seodaemun 1st constituency but lost to Lee Seong-heon. He was firstly elected in 2004, but lost again in 2008. After coming back to the National Assembly in 2012, he became the parliamentary leader of the Democratic Party in 2016. He took a crucial role during the 2016 political scandal that triggered the impeachment of the then President Park Geun-hye. He worked close to the Democratic presidential candidate Moon Jae-in who was elected in 2017. In the 2018 local elections, Woo was one of the favourable candidate for the Seoul mayorship. He contested Democratic preselection but lost to the then Mayor Park Won-soon. Following the death of Park in 2020, he ran again Democratic preselection for the same position for the 2021 election but lost to Park Young-sun. Woo Sang-ho was born on 12 December 1962 in Cheorwon, Gangwon. He is the youngest of the three sons and a daughter of Park Byung-hui (died in 2013), a health centre worker. His father was born in 1916, as the eldest son of a landowner in Cheorwon, and studied at Chuncheon High School. He also studied physical education at Tokyo Imperial University (now University of Tokyo) in Tokyo, Japan. Nevertheless, following the surrender of Japan in 1945, his land was deprived by the Workers' Party of North Korea as Cheorwan was above of the 38th parallel north and therefore was under the rule of Soviet Union.