Democratic Party Finalizes Convention Rules: Delegates 45%→30%, Public Opinion 25%

Leadership to Adopt 'Unified Collective Leadership System'... Separate Elections for Party Leader and Supreme Council Members

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] The Democratic Party of Korea has changed the composition of the electorate for the upcoming August 28 party convention to '30% delegates, 40% party members with voting rights, 25% general public, and 5% general party members.' This reduces the delegate voting weight by 15 percentage points compared to before, while increasing the public opinion poll weight by the same amount. The party leader and the Supreme Council members will be elected separately.

The Democratic Party Convention Preparation Committee (Jeonjunwi) held a plenary meeting on the 4th and finalized the convention rules with these details. Committee Chair Ahn Kyu-baek stated in a briefing after the meeting, "Regarding the composition of the electorate, the delegate proportion was lowered from the current 45% to 30%, and the public opinion poll proportion was raised from 10% to 25%." He added, "Voting rights and eligibility to run will be granted to party members with voting rights who have paid party dues at least six times within the past 12 months, as before, and the effective date for exercising these rights will be July 1 of this year, as previously decided."

Chairman Ahn also said, "To boost interest in the party leader primary, the number of preliminary primary winners will be set to three if there are four or more candidates, and eight if there are nine or more candidates. During the preliminary primary voting, one vote per person will be applied for the party leader, and two votes per person for the Supreme Council members, and the vote percentages and rankings will not be disclosed."

Regarding the leadership system, a unified collective leadership system will be maintained. Therefore, the party leader and Supreme Council members will be elected separately. He explained, "At the recent lawmakers' workshop and after hearing opinions inside and outside the party, many voices confirmed that changing to a pure leadership system where the party leader and Supreme Council members are elected together by vote ranking would be difficult. No special reason was found to change it."

Jeonjunwi Secretary Jo Seung-rae responded to the question, "It was expected that the cutoff (preliminary primary) number would be expanded to five, so why was the current scale maintained?" by saying, "The proposal to expand to five was one of several options. Considering various practicalities such as time constraints, it was decided to maintain the current three-person cutoff."

The committee decided to revisit the issue of strengthening the Supreme Council members' authority two days later. Chairman Ahn expressed skepticism about strengthening the Supreme Council's authority, saying, "Whether it is deliberation, consensus, consultation, or resolution between the party leader and Supreme Council members depends on the capability of the operating entity." Representative Jo said, "Since the committee's resolution has been made, the procedure to submit it to the Emergency Committee today and then to the Party Affairs Committee on the 6th for approval will proceed."

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