DP FINALIZES CONVENTION RULES

[Anchor Lead]

The Democratic Party finalized the convention rules, putting an end to its in-fighting. The Emergency Committee decided to retract its revisions and accept the original plan of the convention organizing committee. The Party also decided not to allow former Emergency Committee chair Park Ji-hyun to run for the election against which she has protested strongly.

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The Democratic Party's party affairs committee was convened to finalize the convention rules. The meeting was held in the wake of the convention organizing committee's chair Ahn Gyu-baek's announcement the previous day that he would resign and also in the wake of protests from other party members. After a heated debate that lasted nearly two hours, the emergency committee leadership finally decided to give in. The emergency committee retracted its amendment of allowing only party members to vote in the primary that selects the candidates advancing to the final round. They accepted the organizing committee's original plan to allocate 30% of the tally to a public opinion poll. Another revision of the emergency committee was also scrapped. It had allotted one out of two given ballots for the supreme committee member election to a specific region.

[Soundbite] Woo Sang-ho(Chair, DP Emergency Committee) : "Party members were greatly disappointed and confrontations were growing worse. So the party affairs committee made a political decision to cut controversial issues."

Once the emergency committee appeared to accept opposing opinions, in-party protest also diminished.

[Soundbite] Ahn Gyu-baek(Chair, DP convention organizing committee) : "Just as you become stronger after undergoing hardship, we will do our best for the party to live up to the expectations of the time."

The party affairs committee decided to respect the emergency committee's decision to disqualify former emergency committee chair Park Ji-hyun from running for party office because she had joined the party less than six months ago. However, Park continued to protest the decision, saying that she would not give up working in politics in spite of the betrayal. Now that the rules of the convention have been finalized, election campaigns are going to heat up. Representative Lee Jae-myung, the leading party leader candidate, is expected to officially announce his candidacy around candidate registration in mid-July.