By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
To halt internal feuding in the United New Democratic Party (UNDP), presidential contender Chung Dong-young said Friday that he will accept the party's decision to have only one round of voting to pick its candidate.
As a result, the party can hold the one-off vote on Oct. 14 by merging the remaining four primaries.
However, his two rivals, former Gyeonggi Governor Sohn Hak-kyu and former Prime Minister Chung Dong-young, are still arguing over alleged fraudulent electioneering such as busing his supporters to polling stations and the phony registration of voters.
``I decided to accept the party's decision but the party should make the primary race a fair competition in which the contenders can compete with insight and viable policies,'' Chung told reporters.
Although he agreed to the one-off vote, he expressed regret, urging party leaders to promise to prevent further changes in the rules of the nomination race.
Chung, a former minister of unification, also stressed the contenders should accept the result of the contest.
As for the fake registration of President Roh Moo-hyun with the electoral college in which one of his campaign workers was allegedly involved, he apologized to Roh and the party.
However, Chung's camp said they will seek to file a lawsuit against Sohn who allegedly made 36 women sign up 20,000 people as voters by proxy paying 50,000 won to each in return.
Sohn and Lee criticized Chung claiming that he is trying to water down his election fraud through finger pointing.
Lee's camp urged the frontrunner to apologize for his illicit campaign.
After Chung won a landslide victory in the second round of voting in North Chungcheong Province on Sept. 16, Sohn raised the suspicion that he was able to win by mobilizing ``fake voters.''
He went incommunicado for a couple of days claiming that party leaders were conniving with Chung, while urging them to work out measures to stop further ``unlawful'' campaigning.
Chung currently leads the UNDP's nomination race garnering a combined 51,125 votes or 43.1 percent in four rounds of voting so far.
The party launched on Aug. 5 will announce its standard-bearer on Oct. 15.