The People Power Party leadership's candidate debate, promoted as part of the 'Kim Moon-soo-Han Duck-soo unification roadmap,' was canceled after Kim Moon-soo, the presidential candidate, refused to participate.
Shin Dong-uk, the chief spokesperson for the People Power Party, met with reporters after a meeting of the emergency response committee on the 8th and noted, 'The debate scheduled for today is difficult to proceed as candidate Kim has expressed his refusal to participate.'
Previously, the People Power Party announced that a significant number of party members suggested 'unification should happen before the candidate registration deadline (11th)' after the two candidates' negotiation the previous day collapsed, stating they would hold a one-on-one candidate debate via YouTube live broadcast at 6 p.m. on the 8th.
In addition, they presented a unification roadmap plan to conduct candidate preference surveys applying the primary rules of '50% party member votes, 50% public opinion polls' from 7 p.m. until 4 p.m. the next day on the 9th.
In response, candidate Kim held an emergency press conference earlier that morning and stated, 'I will not attend a debate unilaterally set by the party without the consent of the candidates.'
Although the debate was canceled, the party leadership noted that the candidate preference public opinion survey would proceed as scheduled for two days starting today.