Busan

Park Heong-joon (Korean: 박형준; Hanja: 朴亨埈; born 19 January 1960) is a South Korean journalist, educator and politician. He was a former professor of the Sociology Department and Graduate School of International Studies at Dong-a University from 1 September 1991 to 12 March 2021. He has been the Mayor of Busan since 8 April 2021. He was elected to the position in the by-election a day before that was provoked following the resignation of Oh Keo-don due to the allegations of sexual harassment. He successfully defeated the Democratic candidate Kim Young-choon with a large margin. Park represented the Grand National Party (GNP) in the National Assembly as the Member for Suyeong from 2004 until in 2008, when he was defeated to the independent candidate Yoo Jae-jung, who later returned to the GNP. Though he lost again to Yoo in 2012, he served as the Secretary-General of the National Assembly from 2014 to 2016. He also served as the Senior Secretary to the President for Political Affairs from 2009 to 2010 under the President Lee Myung-bak.