’People factor’ to determine lineup of DUP leadership

By Chung Min-uck

The general public is expected to be a key factor in determining the lineup of the leadership of the main opposition Democratic Unity Party (DUP).

According to the party, a total of 643,353 people had signed up to cast votes in the party election by Saturday, the last day for registration. The figure outnumbered that of party members (127,920) and party delegates (21,000); and nearly nine out of 10 opted for mobile voting.

Voting starts today and will continue to Jan. 14.

Insiders say the surge will have a huge impact on the result.

Previously, analysts were able to shortlist possible winners of the leadership contest in advance as those who could mobilize their supporters within the party.

“The size of the electoral college is really big,” a DUP spokesman said. “Therefore, it is meaningless to try and predict who will win. It’s all in the hands of the voters.”

The DUP will announce the elected members of its Supreme Council during a party convention on Jan. 15.

The voting is comprised of 70 percent from the general public and party members and 30 percent from DUP delegates.

Analysts claim the new election experiment will turn out to be a healthy development for democracy. But Shin Yul, a professor of political science at Seoul’s Myongji University, disagreed.

He is suspicious of the motives of citizens.

“Not many people right now are interested in the DUP party convention. Ordinary citizens are more interested in the cyber attack incident and bribery scandal involving the ruling Grand National Party (GNP). In this regard, we can say that the large number of public participants is due largely to civic groups that have been mobilized by the candidates,” Shin said. “Moon Sung-keun will benefit most from the new election system given the number of people in the civic group that supports him.”

The actor-turned-politician is the head of Power to the People which has over 180,000 members. Most of them allegedly registered for the DUP’s leadership election.

Moon, together with former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook and former Democratic Party floor leader Rep Park Jie-won, are leading candidates for the party chairmanship.

“The new election system should be valued after it has been proved that the people have volunteered to participate in the voting. As of now, it is difficult to say whether it is good or not,” said the professor.

Meanwhile, the Yeouido Institute, the ruling Grand National Party’s think tank, also suggested a similar system of accepting people’s electoral registration in fielding candidates for the elections in April.