Kim Byong-joon, a professor who served as a key aide to late President Roh Moo-hyun, has been chosen to take the helm of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party. 

Kim will lead the troubled opposition party as it undergoes major changes as chairman of the party's emergency reform task force if he is approved by the national committee of the conservative party. 

The LKP, which has more than 110 seats in the 300-member National Assembly,  has been suffering seriously from its defeat in last month's local elections. 

Kim served as a senior policy secretary and deputy prime minister for education during the liberal Roh Moo-hyun government in the early 2000s.