‘D-180?D-100’ Democratic Party Considers Selecting Presidential Candidate 100 Days Before Election

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeon Jin-young] The Democratic Party of Korea is considering changing the presidential candidate selection rule, which is currently set at 180 days before the presidential election, to 100 days before the election. This decision was influenced by concerns over early election fever.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

According to the Democratic Party’s National Convention Preparation Committee on the 29th, the committee is discussing a proposal to delay the candidate selection. If the candidate is selected six months before the election as per the current rule, there is a high possibility that the candidate will face attacks from both inside and outside the political sphere, which could damage the candidate before the presidential election. It is known that this proposal has gained some consensus within the committee. After discussions in the party constitution and regulations subcommittee, which is a subordinate organization, the committee plans to pass a resolution. A committee official told Asia Economy in a phone interview on the same day, “Although we have not yet confirmed the overall consensus, it is true that a consensus has been formed. There were no opposing opinions.”

The Democratic Party’s constitution stipulates that “the presidential candidate must be selected by 180 days before the presidential election. However, in cases of considerable reasons, it can be otherwise decided by a resolution of the party affairs committee.” Since changes are possible by resolution of the party affairs committee, the candidate was selected 80 days before the election ahead of the 2012 presidential election. At that time, Lee Hae-chan, then leader of the Democratic United Party, delayed the candidate selection due to the schedule overlapping with the 2012 National Convention, the London Olympics, and unification issues with Ahn Cheol-soo, then dean of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at Seoul National University.

The committee plans to conclude the controversial presidential primary “rule” early. Jang Cheol-min, spokesperson for the committee, said to reporters after the meeting on the 28th, “After working on specific details of the presidential primary rules, we decided to enact special party regulations at the national convention. We want to finalize the rules early to prevent various disturbances.”

Since there was already controversy over the separation of terms for the party leader and supreme council members, with questions like “Is this for a specific candidate?”, the committee is known to have agreed to finalize the primary rules early and minimize revisions to the content.

Meanwhile, the committee is also considering ways to boost interest in the national convention scheduled for August 29. A committee official said, “Since the national convention will be held non-face-to-face, we are considering adopting entertainment concepts for candidate appearance videos and preparing programs for regional party members’ participation.”

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