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Opposition factions squabble over leadership election rules
By Korea HeraldPublished : Dec. 16, 2014 - 21:28
The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy is again experiencing factional differences in its efforts to set the rules for electing the new chairman next year.
While the party struggles to draw up the rules, the three bigwigs gunning for the post ― Reps. Chung Sye-kyun, Moon Jae-in and Park Jie-won ― are set to resign from the emergency committee on Wednesday.
Although the committee for organizing the party convention on Feb. 8 has managed to establish some rules, it has stumbled over the composition of the voters and modifying the weighting given to different regions.
Although the committee held a marathon meeting on Monday, factions clashed over whether 20 or 30 percent of the voters would be comprised of ordinary party members and members of the general public.
The pro-Roh Moo-hyun faction, the hard-liners rallying behind Moon, are said to be calling for participation of the citizen electoral college that took part in the 2012 party convention and in electing the party’s presidential candidate that year.
Those with no connection to the faction, however, claim that the citizen electoral college is comprised mostly of supporters of the pro-Roh faction.
The row has been fueled further by the revelation that the list of the 360,000 or so individuals who formed the citizen electoral colleges in 2012 has been lost.
Rules that have been set include conducting a primary election to trim down the number of candidates to three. In addition, it has been decided that the party chairman must resign one year in advance of the presidential election if he or she chooses to run for presidency.
Although the three major contenders are likely to go ahead with resigning from the committee, they are said to be taking a cautious approach to officially entering the race until the rules are finalized.
“Resigning (from the emergency committee) and entering the race are separate matters,” Chung was quoted as saying by a local news agency.
“The decision must be made soon, but the rules are not even set yet.”
Similar sentiments were expressed by Park, who said that he considers it unnecessary to make an official announcement immediately, and that he would observe the situation further.
Moon, who was widely expected to formalize his bid for party leadership immediately, is also reportedly weighing his choices.
By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)
While the party struggles to draw up the rules, the three bigwigs gunning for the post ― Reps. Chung Sye-kyun, Moon Jae-in and Park Jie-won ― are set to resign from the emergency committee on Wednesday.
Although the committee for organizing the party convention on Feb. 8 has managed to establish some rules, it has stumbled over the composition of the voters and modifying the weighting given to different regions.
Although the committee held a marathon meeting on Monday, factions clashed over whether 20 or 30 percent of the voters would be comprised of ordinary party members and members of the general public.
The pro-Roh Moo-hyun faction, the hard-liners rallying behind Moon, are said to be calling for participation of the citizen electoral college that took part in the 2012 party convention and in electing the party’s presidential candidate that year.
Those with no connection to the faction, however, claim that the citizen electoral college is comprised mostly of supporters of the pro-Roh faction.
The row has been fueled further by the revelation that the list of the 360,000 or so individuals who formed the citizen electoral colleges in 2012 has been lost.
Rules that have been set include conducting a primary election to trim down the number of candidates to three. In addition, it has been decided that the party chairman must resign one year in advance of the presidential election if he or she chooses to run for presidency.
Although the three major contenders are likely to go ahead with resigning from the committee, they are said to be taking a cautious approach to officially entering the race until the rules are finalized.
“Resigning (from the emergency committee) and entering the race are separate matters,” Chung was quoted as saying by a local news agency.
“The decision must be made soon, but the rules are not even set yet.”
Similar sentiments were expressed by Park, who said that he considers it unnecessary to make an official announcement immediately, and that he would observe the situation further.
Moon, who was widely expected to formalize his bid for party leadership immediately, is also reportedly weighing his choices.
By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)
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Articles by Korea Herald
