PPP'S RULES FOR PRIMARY ELECTIONS

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The largest opposition People Power Party has decided to exclude the clause that meant to prevent adverse selection, which has been causing conflict among Its presidential candidates during the primary run. Instead of relying completely on a public opinion poll in the first primary, the party decided to include 20% of party member votes and question the competitiveness in a presidential candidate in the election in the final primary.

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The election watchdog of the People Power Party concluded not to include the controversial clause meant to prevent adverse selection. Instead they chose to compromise. The party’s election committee decided to lower the weight of public opinion poll in the first primary from 100% to 80% and allocate the remaining 20% to party member votes. In the final primary round, opinion poll and party member votes will continue to be weighed the same at 50:50 ratio, but the opinion poll will measure the final candidate’s competitiveness in the presidential election. This unanimous decision was made after nearly seven hours of heated debate.

[Soundbite] Chung Hong-won(Chair, PPP Election Committee) : “We decided to look at how competitive a candidate can be in the presidential election instead of discussing the adverse selection issue.”

The first official event of the largest opposition party’s primary election was marred by party election committee chair Chung Hong-won announcing his intention to resign. Although PPP leader Lee Jun-seok managed to dissuade him from resigning, the event proclaiming fairness had already been disrupted. Four out of 12 candidates, namely Hong Joon-pyo, Yoo Seong-min, Ha Tae-keung, and Ahn Sang-soo, did not attend this event in protest of including the adverse selection prevention clause. The party leader was apparently disappointed.

[Soundbite] Lee Jun-seok(Leader, People Power Party) : “It’s very concerning that they did not attend the party’s official event and it should never be repeated.”

The conflict over the primary race rules appears to be wrapping up with the election committee’s compromise. But another conflict may rise while they discuss which questions to include in the poll to measure a candidate’s competitiveness in the presidential election.