The main opposition Democratic United Party’s presidential primary race normalized Monday as the dissenting candidates agreed to return after the leadership confirmed no major hitch in the controversial mobile voting system.
“The number of disqualified votes was within the statistical margin of error and did not constitute a reason to suspend the primary process,” said Lew Seon-ho, vice chairman of the party’s election committee.
The committee explained that based on their review, only 599 out of 19,345 mobile votes were counted as invalid from the Jeju’s mobile vote.
“Upon the consensus of the candidates’ delegates, we decided to carry on the regional votes as originally planned.”
The panel had decided earlier in the day to call off the third mobile vote in Gangwon Province, as well as the television debate in North Chungcheong Province.
The underdogs’ decision to return to the race largely reflected the concern that a prolonged feud would turn voters away from the liberal party that faces an uphill battle against ruling Saenuri Party’s presidential candidate Park Geun-hye, observers said.
The trailing candidates had threatened a boycott over the weekend and demanded to conduct a recount or a re-election, claiming that the mobile vote was skewed toward frontrunner Rep. Moon Jae-in.
In the two previous regional races in Jeju and Ulsan on Saturday and Sunday each, former presidential chief-of-staff Moon took the lead with 60 percent and 52 percent of the ballots, respectively.
His rivals ― Kim Doo-kwan, Sohn Hak-kyu and Rep. Chung Sye-kyun ― questioned the result, citing alleged faults in the current mobile voting system.
Mobile votes were not counted as valid if voters hung up before all the names of the four candidates were listed and this acted in favor of No. 4 candidate Moon, they said.
In response to their complaint, the committee conducted a recount on the votes on Monday morning and decided to rotate the candidates’ numbers in the upcoming races.
“We apologize to the people that the primary process was not so smooth,” said party chief Rep. Lee Hae-chan in the Supreme Council meeting on Monday.
The party’s measures were not “fully satisfying,” but all three agreed to continue the race.
“I will dedicate myself to the party’s victory (in the December presidential election), even under unfair circumstances,” said Kim.
Sohn followed suit later in the afternoon.
Rep. Chung said earlier in the day that he will participate in the party’s scheduled debate.
The DUP is to elect by Sept. 16 its single presidential candidate to run against the Park Geun-hye and also possibly against Seoul National University professor Ahn Cheol-soo.
In case none of the four candidates win over 50 percent of the valid votes by then, the top two contestants are to face a runoff election on Sept. 23.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
