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Quick Facts
Biography
Kim Boo-kyum (Korean: 김부겸; Hanja: 金富謙; born 1 January 1958) is a South Korean politician who is presently a Minjoo Party member of the National Assembly for Suseong, Daegu and former minister of the Interior and Safety. He was formerly the member for Gunpo between 2000 and 2012, first for the Grand National Party and then, from 2003, the liberal Uri Party and its successors. In the 2016 parliamentary election in Daegu, Kim defeated his Saenuri opponent Kim Moon-soo in a 62.5 percent landslide, marking the first time a member of a liberal party had been elected in that city since 1985. Kim had earlier stood for mayor of Daegu in the 2014 local elections, and received 40 percent of the vote, a number seen at the time as unusually large in the conservative stronghold. He stated in 2014 that he hoped to "overcome the barrier of regionalism".
Kim is considered a centrist. As a member of the Grand National Party he pressed for reform in the party, and when he defected from the party in 2003 he cited the need "to unify the nation ... and to root out regionalism". A 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks described Kim as a "reasonable progressive lawmaker" representing a "centrist platform", and as a member of the Supreme Council of the Democratic United Party in 2012 he defended centrist members of the party from deselection. Commentators have named Kim a potential candidate in the 2017 presidential elections.
Kim was admitted to study political science at Seoul National University in 1976, but was expelled for taking part in protests against the Yushin Constitution in 1977, before being readmitted and expelled again for violating martial law in 1980. He was later reinstated a second time, and received his degree in 1987.
Kim's daughter, Yoon Se-in (born Kim Ji-su), is a television actress. Yoon campaigned for Kim in the 2012 parliamentary election and the 2014 mayoral race, but was unable to in 2016.