The main opposition Democratic United Party hopes that more than 2 million people will vote in its presidential primary, scheduled for Sept. 23. But the target may prove to be too high, given the initial lackluster response to the DUP’s call for voter registration.
Only 40,365 people registered during the first two days of registration, which had started last Wednesday. Registration will continue until Sept. 4.
The low level of registration was disappointing to say the least for the DUP’s leadership, which wanted to make the most out of the primary. Should this trend hold, the total number of people eligible for voting in the primary would fall below the 600,000 mark.
As some party insiders claim, registration may have been low because politically active people loyal to the DUP were postponing it until after the peak holiday season last week. If so, deepening concerns among the party’s leaders could be put to rest.
But it was not the holiday season alone that diverted the attention of the DUP’s traditional supporters away from the forthcoming primary.
Instead, a fundamental problem lies with the DUP, as it suspects that it will not be able to win the presidential election for itself and, as such, will have to ally itself with other opposition groups ahead of the Dec. 19 election.
Against this backdrop, the DUP is seriously considering the idea of holding a second primary in which to pick a candidate from among its nominee, the nominee of a progressive party and professor Ahn Cheol-soo of Seoul National University and giving the winner a mandate to represent all opposition forces.
It goes without saying that the main opposition party would want its nominee to win the contest. But it is more likely that an independent outsider favored by a large segment of the electorate, namely Ahn, would be picked as the standard-bearer representing all opposition groups.
It would be even more disheartening to the main opposition party if Ahn should choose to go it alone, riding on his soaring popular support. The party would do well to take this possibility into consideration, given the shift in support in its traditional stronghold ― the southwestern Honam region. Ahn’s approval ratings in opinion polls jumped from 30.3 percent at the end of June to 57.6 percent at the end of last month. The DUP’s Moon Jae-in was a distant second with a mere 16.2 percent.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
