2 Candidates to Join Hands in UDP Runoff
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
Two politicians running in the United Democratic Party's (UDP) leadership race have agreed that who ever receives the fewest votes will declare their support for the other, Rep. Lee Nak-yon said Thursday.
Rep. Choo Mi-ae and Chyung Dae-chul, a former legislator, reached the agreement at a meeting to discuss ways of enhancing the chances of a Choo-Chyung coalition to win the race after polls showed Rep. Chung Sye-kyun having a strong lead.
The main opposition party will hold a national convention Sunday to elect a new chairman and members of its decision-making Supreme Council.
UDP regulations state that a runoff election must take place if no candidate garners 50 percent or more of the votes cast. A total of 12,169 delegates from across the country are eligible to vote, according to party officials.
Asked if the alliance could have an impact on the election results, frontrunner Chung dismissed it, claiming he has received sweeping support from UDP delegates.
Party sources, however, did not rule out the possibility of the alliance winning a runoff.
Polls said Chung, a former minister of commerce and industry, leads the race by a double-digit margin.
Chung's support ranges from 37 to 45 percent in polls conducted by the UDP, while Choo's support hovers at 20 to 30 percent ― Chyung is third with between 15 and 23 percent.
If the election results are similar to the poll outcome, the UDP is expected to hold a runoff.
The question is how many delegates supporting either Choo or Chyung will cast their vote for the one to be supported by their preferred candidate.
Chung said the support base of the two candidates was different and therefore he thinks that the possibility of votes being swapped as very low.
Former lawmaker Yoon Ho-jung, a spokesman of Chung, claimed about half the votes supporting a third placed candidate will switch to the frontrunner in a runoff.
But aides of Choo and Chyung said that their supporters know that a vote for Chung is a vote for a regressive UDP.
They would choose the candidate supported by their preferred candidate in the first vote in a possible runoff, the aides said.