Ruling Party's National Primary Held in Virtual Space... First Political Party to Introduce 'Metaverse'

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] The Democratic Party of Korea announced on the 26th that it will introduce the three-dimensional virtual space 'Metaverse' into the presidential candidate primary election in response to the non-face-to-face situation caused by the high-intensity social distancing measures due to COVID-19.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the same day, the Democratic Party's Presidential Primary Planning Team held a 'Metaverse Meeting' demonstration at the party headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul, and announced the main primary schedule and plans containing this content.

The Democratic Party plans to conduct the primary schedule focusing on online-based soft content until the first regional primary on September 4.

The main primary schedule consists of three stages. First, during the 'Wise Candidate Life' running until the 8th of next month, policies proposed by the public will be gathered and candidates' opinions will be heard through videos in 'TheMin: Policy Mic.' It also includes 'TheMin: Real Taste Restaurants,' where candidates are filmed sharing daily stories with acquaintances at their favorite restaurants, and 'TheMin: Policy Market,' where candidates sell pledges or public-proposed policies in a live commerce format. All of these will be conducted online.

From August 9 to 29, 'National Interview Season 2' will be held. Candidates who appealed their human charm through 'Wise Candidate Life' will start full-fledged policy competition in National Interview Season 2.

It will consist of focused interviews with journalists, senior academics and opinion leaders, and youth-focused interviews. After each focused interview, evaluations by a separately organized national judging panel will be conducted. Detailed plans will be established later according to the COVID-19 situation, and the process will flexibly alternate between online and offline.

The Presidential Primary Planning Team plans to propose to the Central Party Election Commission that TV debates be conducted in a new way, different from before, by introducing a tournament format and forming a national judging panel.

After these two programs conclude, the regional primaries will begin on September 4. In the regional primaries, each candidate will be finally evaluated for presidential qualification through joint speeches and primary voting.

Along with this, the Democratic Party decided to introduce the 'Metaverse' into the primary process for the first time in party history. The Metaverse is a virtual space that replicates reality, and the plan is to move the primary space into the virtual space to guarantee the activities of presidential candidates even during the COVID-19 era and to maximize attention.

Kang Hoon-sik, head of the Primary Planning Team, said at the 7th meeting of the Presidential Primary Planning Team on the day, "Just a month ago, we were worried about the turnout, but now we have reached a situation where we have to worry about excessive enthusiasm," adding, "So far, 1 million citizens have applied to be part of the Democratic Party electorate. Including delegates, it is about 1.6 million."

He continued, "We may need to raise the recruitment goal of the electorate from 2 million to 3 million," and said, "To create a meaningful primary while maintaining social distancing, we plan to move the primary space to a virtual space. We will repay the public with a cool primary during the hot summer."

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