As contenders for party leadership spar over how to run the Democratic Party of Korea's Aug. 17 national convention chair election, the party's National Convention Preparatory Committee (Jeonjunwi) said there would be no problem introducing a "preferential voting system."
Lee Yeon-hee, a Democratic Party lawmaker who serves as the Jeonjunwi Spokesperson, told reporters at the National Assembly on the 9th after holding a Jeonjunwi meeting, "The (preferential voting system) was approved by the Jeonjunwi and is pending at the Supreme Council," adding, "Within the Jeonjunwi, the majority opinion was that it is hard to see it as a violation of the party constitution and rules."
In preferential voting, when there are two or more candidates, voters rank all candidates from first choice to last. The count begins with only first-choice votes. If a candidate wins a majority at that stage, the winner is decided immediately. If no one has a majority, the lowest-ranking candidate is eliminated, and the ballots that chose that candidate as first choice are transferred to their second-choice candidates, adding to the remaining candidates' totals to determine the winner.
In the end, the preferential voting system makes second-choice preferences decisive in determining victory or defeat. In this party chair race, two candidates—Kim Min-seok and Song Young-gil—from the pro-Myeong (pro-Lee Jae-myung) faction are running, making it likely to favor the pro-Myeong camp.
In response, figures in the pro-Cheong (pro-Jeong Cheong-rae) camp argued that preferential voting violates the party constitution and rules. Although it passed the Jeonjunwi, it remains pending at the Supreme Council, where the pro-Cheong camp holds a majority.
The party leadership contenders are trading barbs over preferential voting. Former leader Jung Chung-rae wrote on Facebook the previous day, "If you fight two-on-one or three-on-one, you get badly beaten. It hurts a lot." By contrast, former prime minister Kim Min-seok said, "I will not try to change or dispute the rules on the grounds that they favor a particular person," and lawmaker Song Young-gil said, "The party first introduced a preferential voting system in the 2002 presidential primary."
With the Jeonjunwi again concluding that introducing a preferential voting system poses no problem, the conflict among leadership contenders appears likely to intensify. Lawmaker Lee Yeon-hee said, "We did not make a final decision; I was saying that the majority view is that it is not a violation of the party constitution and rules," adding, "If the Supreme Council does not approve it, we will have no choice but to discuss it again."
Meanwhile, the Jeonjunwi decided that day to give a 5% weighting to votes by dues-paying members in strategic regions. The strategic regions are Daegu, North Gyeongsang, and South Gyeongsang. It also decided to introduce a youth Supreme Council member system. However, it did not set the age limit for running as a youth Supreme Council member.