Gwangju Kyung Sil Ryeon Urges Democratic Party to Wake Up Amid Primary Election Noise

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] The Gwangju Economic Justice Practice Citizens' Coalition on the 18th stated, "We urge the Democratic Party of Korea to awaken and reflect on itself for having dismantled the system nomination by itself."

Through a press release on the same day, Gwangju Kyungsilryeon pointed out, "The noise surrounding the Democratic Party's nominations is escalating," and added, "The principle of the Lee Hae-chan system nomination collapsed during the primary process, causing confusion, and the aftereffects of the nomination process occurring in Dongnam-gap, Gwangsan-gap, and Gwangsan-eul are becoming severe."

They continued, "This is the result of the perception that 'nomination equals election victory' becoming widespread, leading to overheated and dirty competition among Democratic Party candidates, and the Democratic Party leadership failing to respond properly based on principles and standards," and claimed, "Among the 18 constituencies in Gwangju and Jeonnam, there were requests for reconsideration in 7 places, and due to decisions without principles, mutual slander and expos?s among candidates intensified, causing local residents to be disappointed even before the general election."

They explained, "In 2016, the 20th general election was a stern judgment by the people on the arrogance of the then Saenuri Party and the Democratic Party," and added, "The people judged the Saenuri Party, which ignored voters by being obsessed with the equation 'nomination equals election victory,' and judged the Democratic Party in the 19th general election for failing to perform its role properly despite receiving a landslide vote."

They also said, "As a result, all 8 seats in Gwangju were given to the People's Party, and Jeonnam barely secured one seat," and "The Saenuri Party was expected to hold a majority of seats before the general election but ended up with only 122 out of 300 seats."

Gwangju Kyungsilryeon stated, "Looking at this nomination process, the behavior of the Democratic Party is not much different from the past," emphasizing, "In particular, in the case of Gwangsan-gap, despite preliminary candidate Lee Seok-hyung being accused of violating the Public Official Election Act, the Democratic Party's reconsideration committee and supreme council initially dismissed the reconsideration, but after the prosecution conducted a search and seizure, feeling the pressure, they ultimately revoked his nomination qualification."

They pointed out, "In the case of Dongnam-gap, the Gwangju City Election Commission reported two people to the prosecution for slander and false information publication, and in Gwangsan-eul, expos?s and slander between candidates have intensified ahead of the re-election."

Finally, they urged, "We call for a great awakening of the Democratic Party leadership that dismantled the system nomination by itself and demand that special measures be devised to ensure that the April 15 general election is conducted fairly and squarely," adding, "Democratic Party primary candidates should immediately stop excessive expos?s, slander, illegal election campaigns, and other negative election tactics, and switch to a fair election system."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.