People Power Party begins unprecedented process to replace presidential candidate
People Power Party presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo and independent presidential hopeful Han Duck-soo greet each other after their meeting at a café located in the National Assembly in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap
The conservative People Power Party (PPP) set in motion an unprecedented process to replace its presidential candidate Saturday, as talks on merging the candidacies of its standard-bearer Kim Moon-soo and former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo collapsed the previous day.
The party convened an emergency committee and election management body to begin a process to make decisions on the cancellation of Kim's election as the party's candidate, Han's party membership and other related issues.
The move came amid fears that if Kim and Han fail to unify their candidacy at a time of deepening fissures within the country's conservative camp, chances of a conservative win in the June 3 presidential poll would further diminish given that Lee Jae-myung, the liberal Democratic Party candidate, has been widening his lead.
Rep. Lee Yang-soo, head of the PPP election committee, announced on the party's website that Han has registered as a party's presidential candidate. Han also revealed in a message to PPP members that he has formally joined the party.
The PPP election committee notified party members last night of its decision to cancel Kim's candidacy and opened candidate registration for one hour at 3 a.m.
The PPP will put the motion for the candidate reelection to a vote Saturday and finalize its presidential candidate Sunday -- a deadline by which a party candidate must register his or her candidacy with the state election committee.
Kim lambasted the PPP's move as a "midnight political coup" and an "unprecedented anti-democratic act," vowing to take legal and political actions to hold those responsible accountable.
Kim later filed a court injunction to stop the party from canceling his candidacy, the second such legal action since he became a PPP presidential contender.
Kim had sought a court order to challenge the PPP leadership's push to merge his campaign with Han's. The petition was dismissed by the court Friday.
The PPP accused Kim of thwarting party efforts toward the single candidacy, defending its decision to disqualify Kim as a candidate as a painful choice the party had to make.
"It was the party members' demand that we field a candidate who can stop Lee Jae-myung's dictatorship. Unifying (the candidacy) was not a political move for any one individual or faction; it was our last hope of winning this election," said Kwon Young-se, the PPP's emergency committee chief.
"But candidate Kim betrayed the trust of party members, and by stalling for time, he sabotaged the efforts to unify the candidacy," Kwon said.
Kwon apologized to the public for the failure to select a single PPP candidate through political compromise, saying he will take responsibility for the outcome of the party's decisions on Kim and Han.
More than half of party members' votes are required to pass the cancellation motion against Kim. If that threshold isn't reached, Kim will keep his candidacy.
In its pursuit of a candidate replacement, the party invoked a clause of its key law stipulating that when there is a "considerable" reason, the party can make its determination regarding the election of a presidential candidate through an emergency committee decision.
The PPP's move toward naming a new candidate came as Kim pivoted away from his earlier position in favor of a unified candidacy.
During the party's nomination contest, Kim had repeatedly stressed his intent to swiftly merge candidacies with Han in the event of Han's run for president as an independent. But such a stance changed after he was crowned as the party's official presidential candidate last Saturday.
Demanding that Kim follow through on his pledge for a unified candidacy, the party leadership had pressured him to merge candidacies before Sunday. But Kim insisted that he would seek a unified candidacy through an opinion poll on May 15-16.
In various opinion polls, Han was ahead of Kim. In this week's National Barometer Survey, Lee garnered 43 percent support, trailed by former Han with 23 percent and Kim with 12 percent.
On Friday, a Seoul court dismissed Kim's petition challenging the party leadership's push to merge his campaign with Han's, while PPP lawmakers agreed to hand over full authority to the party leadership to possibly reselect its presidential candidate.