Parties Begin Selection of Candidates for polls
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
Campaign politics is back with senior legislators in both the ruling and opposition parties engaging in a tug of war over the way their respective candidates are selected to run in the June 2 local elections.
The internal power struggle revivals come in the face of growing calls for reforming the methods the two parties choose their candidates as the previous top-down selections have proven to be ineffective in drawing public support in the race.
Key decision-makers of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) Monday agreed to delay the announcement of committee members to pick those to run in the elections on the GNP ticket.
The GNP was scheduled to unveil a list, Monday, but has delayed doing so until Wednesday.
During a meeting of the party's decision-making Supreme Council, Rep. Huh Tae-yeol, an aide of former GNP Chairwoman Park Geun-hye, raised the question of fairness after he looked at the preliminary list of short-listed judges.
``I think we, the GNP members, should learn from the selection blunders that we made two years ago in the National Assembly elections,'' he said.
Huh reminded his fellow GNP lawmakers of what the Park's faction called ``the massacre of Park supporters'' in the choosing of candidates to run in the elections on the GNP ticket.
The third-term lawmaker hinted that the selection committee at the time was dominated by people who were close to President Lee Myung-bak, and they eliminated supporters of the former GNP chairwoman.
Huh proposed that the party include one more pro-Park lawmaker in the tentative list. Currently, the GNP plans to include six lawmakers who are close to President Lee, three from supporters of Park, three from the neutral group and three others from outside the party.
The senior lawmaker's protest led to the postponement of the announcement of the names.
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) also engaged in a heated debate over who should pick its candidates over the weekend. But no consensus was reached.
Earlier, DP Chairman Chung Sye-kyun announced the introduction of the so-called citizen judges system.
Under this proposal, experts from all walks of life were to make the selections and their decision would be binding.
However, the binding verdict would considerably undermine the clout of ranking lawmakers who tend to perceive their influence in the pick of candidates as a source of support.
The DP planned to invite citizen judges to picking its candidate for mayor of Gwangju, the bastion of liberals.
So far, however, the plan has not gone the way it intended.
Rep. Park Joo-sun protested the move, claiming neither the DP's platform nor its guidelines allow it to introduce the citizen system.
The tug of war highlights the clashes between the goals of members of the two parties ― winning elections versus the personal ambition of key decision-makers to keep their influence.
The more senior lawmakers make concessions in the selection process, the more they will lose their leverage.