Over 2.9 billion won ($2 million) was raised for former People Power Party leader Han Dong-hoon’s presidential campaign, concluding a fundraising event after just 11 hours, his representatives said Monday.
Han is running for the conservative party’s nomination in the June 3 presidential election.
His team said that the total amount raised had come to 2.94 billion won as of 7:55 p.m. Monday, reaching the maximum limit that a candidate can raise under the Political Funds Act.
The act stipulates that funds raised by a candidate should not exceed 5 percent of the total campaign expenses set by election authorities. The upper limit of expenses for the June 3 presidential election has been set by the National Election Commission at 58.85 billion won.
Some 35,000 people participated in the fundraising effort after it opened to the public at 9 a.m. on Monday. Donations surpassed 1 billion won at 9:40 a.m. and surged to 2.5 billion won at 5:07 p.m. the same day, two hours before the fundraising wrapped up.
According to Han’s camp, 93.9 percent of contributors donated less than 100,000 won.
Han expressed gratitude toward his donors and vowed to respond with “overwhelming victory” in the upcoming election, his representatives said in a statement.
The amount raised for Han’s campaign is slightly less than the donations raised for that of liberal presidential front-runner Rep. Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea, which came to nearly 3.2 billion won, last week.
All eyes are on whether Han will make it to the next round of the People Power Party’s primary process, as the party is set to winnow the current eight contenders to four in the evening, after conducting public opinion polls of the current candidates.
In an upcoming round, two candidates will be selected through a process that integrates party member votes and public opinion polling. The party’s presidential candidate will be officially confirmed on May 3 at its convention.
In recent polling Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo saw 7.5 percent in support, followed by People Power Party Rep. Na Kyung-won at 2 percent. Rep. Lee Jae-myung led the poll with an overwhelming 50.2 percent support.
mkjung@heraldcorp.com
