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 with adopting a "preferential voting system."
Lee Yeon-hee, a Democratic Party lawmaker who serves as Jeonjunwi Spokesperson, met with reporters at the National Assembly on the 9th after holding a Jeonjunwi meeting and said, "The (preferential voting system) was approved by Jeonjunwi and is pending at the Supreme Council," adding, "Within Jeonjunwi, the majority view was that it is difficult to see this as a violation of the party constitution and party rules."
Preferential voting is a system in which, when there are two or more candidates, voters rank all candidates from first choice to last. Ballots are first counted using only first-choice votes. If a candidate wins a majority, the winner is determined immediately. If no one wins a majority, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated, and the second-choice votes on those ballots are added to the remaining candidates to determine the winner.
In the end, the preferential voting system makes the second-choice candidate decisive in winning or losing. In this party chair race, two candidates from the pro-Myung (pro Lee Jae-myung) camp, Kim Min-seok and Song Young-gil, are running, making it likely to be advantageous to the pro-Myung faction.
In response, figures aligned with the pro-Cheong (pro Jeong Cheong-rae) camp argued that preferential voting violates the party constitution and rules. Although Jeonjunwi approved it, it has been held up at the Supreme Council, where the pro-Cheong camp is in the majority.
The party leadership contenders are engaged in a war of nerves over preferential voting. Former chair Jung Chung-rae wrote on Facebook the previous day, "If you fight two to one or three to one, you get beaten to a pulp. 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 during the 2002 presidential primary."
With Jeonjunwi again concluding that introducing the preferential voting system poses no problem, the conflict among the leadership contenders appears likely to sharpen further. Lawmaker Lee Yeon-hee said, "We did not make a final decision; we said that the majority view is that it does not violate 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, 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 decide the age limit for running for youth Supreme Council member.