Jeong Seong-ho Rejects 'Sudden Death' Nomination... "Bottom 20% Evaluation, Structure That Cannot Be Arbitrarily Manipulated"

Dismissal of Controversy Over 'Bimyeonghyeongsa, Chinmyeonghyeongjae'

Jeong Seong-ho, member of the Democratic Party of Korea./Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

Jeong Seong-ho, the leader of the pro-Myeong faction in the Democratic Party of Korea, dismissed the controversy over the party’s nomination process on the 27th, described as ‘pro-Myeong fortune, anti-Myeong misfortune,’ stating, “The evaluation of the bottom 20% is absolutely not something that can be done arbitrarily.”

On the morning of the same day, Jeong appeared on SBS’s “Kim Taehyun’s Political Show” and presented counterexamples, saying, “There are many who are anti-Myeong but received uncontested nominations. Many classified as pro-Myeong also went through primaries.” He listed lawmakers who are anti-Myeong yet received uncontested nominations, including Go Min-jeong, Park Soo-hyun, Choi In-ho, Song Ki-heon, Min Hong-cheol, Kim Jeong-ho, Park Jae-ho, Jeon Jae-soo, and Lee So-young, directly refuting the host’s question suggesting that “pro-Myeong lawmakers received uncontested nominations, while anti-Myeong lawmakers faced primaries or cutoffs.” Jeong added, “Among those clearly pro-Myeong, Nam In-soon had a primary, and the same goes for Jeong Il-young and Im Oh-kyung.”

Regarding criticism that “anti-Myeong lawmakers are concentrated in the bottom 20%,” he also denied this was true. He questioned, “The bottom 20% evaluation wasn’t suddenly done now, was it?” and added, “It was established in 2019 and has been applied continuously since the 20th National Assembly. There is a party’s public office candidate evaluation system within the system.” He also said, “Because it was done within the elected official evaluation system, it is a structure that cannot be arbitrarily manipulated.”

Jeong further explained, “Since it was all finalized around November last year, the leadership at that time would not have instructed to give low scores to specific individuals.”

He also evaluated that the nomination process was better compared to that of the ruling party. He said, “Public distrust toward the 21st National Assembly is very high. The Democratic Party will be recognized for having undergone a more thorough reform and innovative nomination process.”

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