The Democratic Party of Korea has confirmed three party leader candidates and eight supreme council member candidates for the main primary of its Aug. 17 national convention, officially opening the contest for party leadership. Each candidate moved immediately into preparations for a nationwide regional primary tour.
According to the Democratic Party on Saturday, the main primary will proceed through a regional rotation format. Voting begins in South Chungcheong Province, North Chungcheong Province, Daejeon and Sejong on Aug. 1, followed by Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province on Aug. 2; Jeju and Incheon on Aug. 8; Gangwon Province, Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province on Aug. 9; North Jeolla Province, South Jeolla Province and Gwangju on Aug. 15; and Gyeonggi Province and Seoul on Aug. 16.
Party member voting will run on a rolling regional schedule aligned with the primary tour. Voting in the Chungcheong region runs July 28 to 31; in Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province, July 29 to Aug. 1. Jeju and Incheon vote from Aug. 4 to 7; Gangwon Province, Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province from Aug. 5 to 8; the Honam region from Aug. 11 to 14; and Seoul and Gyeonggi Province from Aug. 12 to 15.
The final winners will be determined at the national convention at the Daejeon Convention Center on Aug. 17. For elected supreme council seats, if the top five vote-getters are all men, the female candidate with the highest vote total will replace the fifth-place finisher.
The main primary uses a single-vote system, with party members and national delegates accounting for 70 percent of the result and a public opinion poll making up the remaining 30 percent. The party leader race uses a preferential voting system in which voters rank all three candidates from first to third choice. The supreme council race asks voters to choose two candidates from the eight on the ballot.
Overseas party members — delegates and rights-holding members — may cast ballots online from 9 a.m. Aug. 9 through 8 p.m. Aug. 11, while national delegates will vote in person at the convention on Aug. 17. The schedule for the public opinion poll has not been announced.
In addition, the Democratic Party has decided to apply a 5 percent strategic-region weighting to delegate and party member votes from the Daegu-North Gyeongsang Province (TK) and Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang Province (PK) regions starting from the main primary. The measure will be in effect only for this convention.
Meanwhile, the three candidates locked in a fierce contest for party leadership — Kim Min-seok, Jung Chung-rae and Song Young-gil — spent Friday, the day after the preliminary primary results were announced, crisscrossing the country to rally their supporters.
Kim met with Incheon Mayor Park Chan-dae on Friday, targeting voters aligned with President Lee Jae Myung. Park is considered a key figure in the pro-Lee camp, having served as the Democratic Party's floor leader when Lee was party leader. Kim held the position of senior supreme council member at the time.
At the meeting, Kim said Park "has a stable partnership with the president that everyone envies," and expressed hope that the two could "consult together on various issues after the national convention."
Kim also pledged that if elected party leader, he would "immediately form a task force for three mega-projects and regional growth support," adding that "the Lee Jae Myung government is shifting the national development framework toward locally driven growth, and we need to work with regions to develop their own unique growth strategies while overcoming the overconcentration in the greater Seoul area."
Jung met with Kim Kyung-soo, chair of the Presidential Committee on Balanced National Development, in a bid to consolidate support from voters loyal to former President Moon Jae-in. Kim is regarded as a core figure in the pro-Roh Moo-hyun and pro-Moon factions, having served across both administrations.
Jung's camp said in a press notice that "on Friday morning, there was a breakfast meeting with former South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kyung-soo," adding that the gathering involved "in-depth exchanges of views and shared understanding on internal party issues and the question of party unity after the convention." Jung visited the Chungcheong region in the afternoon — where the regional primary tour opens Aug. 1 — and met with Cheongju Mayor Lee Chang-seop and North Chungcheong Province Governor Shin Yong-han, among others.
Song traveled to North Jeolla Province, home to about 190,000 rights-holding party members, to court Honam voters. He paid his respects at a memorial to martyr Lee Se-jong at Jeonbuk National University in the morning, then moved on to the Saemangeum development site for a tour, visiting the Saemangeum Development Authority and renewable energy companies operating in the area.
bigroot@heraldcorp.com
