The People Power Party said it will establish candidate selection standards by setting up an evaluation system for the local elections to be held in June next year. For proportional representation seats in metropolitan councils, it decided to introduce an audition system to identify outstanding young talent.
Na Kyung-won, who serves as the head of the People Power Party's local election planning task force, said on the afternoon of the 7th at the National Assembly after a meeting of the task force, "We decided to set the most important nomination criteria as 'people who fight well for the people' and 'people who fight well to get things done.'"
She went on, "Next year's local elections are not simply about choosing people who do a good job for local administration and localities, but an important election for the Republic of Korea and the people," adding, "I see it as a midterm evaluation of the Lee Jae-myung administration's destruction of the Constitution and destruction of livelihoods."
On nominations, the People Power Party set "five principles" as standards: ▲ talent who safeguard constitutional order and conform to justice and common sense ▲ talent who, with strong party loyalty, have contributed to the development of the party and the local community ▲ young and female talent with expertise and vision to lead regional development ▲ trustworthy talent with morality and character that meet the public's expectations ▲ talent who, with an open attitude, can communicate with residents and the local community.
In addition to the nomination principles, the People Power Party is preparing a "public office candidate competency evaluation system" under which candidates will be evaluated after completing education on conservative values and constitutional values. For proportional representation seats in metropolitan councils, the party plans to hold a public audition to secure capable young talent.
Jo Ji-yeon, the People Power Party Spokesperson for the local election planning task force, explained, "As detailed criteria for nominations, we will highly evaluate those who took the lead in identifying the Lee Jae-myung administration and the Democratic Party's destruction of the rule of law and corruption, and those who have held positions in the central party, city and provincial parties, and party member councils and contributed to the party. We will focus on evaluating those with prize-winning records in various contests linked to regional development and will organize preferential items in line with these criteria."
She added, "To ensure the nomination principles are institutionally supported, we plan to codify them in the party constitution and regulations and to promote an amendment to the party rules that codifies party contribution evaluations as screening criteria for the nomination management committee," emphasizing, "In addition, we will build a central artificial intelligence (AI) publicity support platform and institutionalize a system that allows all candidates to run low-cost, high-efficiency campaigns."