By Chung Hee-hyung
The regional elections for the opposition Democratic United Party’s (DUP) leadership have degenerated into a battle of negative campaigns, with the two leading candidates ratcheting up attacks against each other.
The intra-party fighting might do more harm than good to the approval ratings of the main opposition party, which is already suffering from collateral damage caused by repeated blunders by the Unified Progressive Party (UPP), its junior partner.
For candidates Kim Han-gil and Lee Hae-chan, however, gaining the upper hand in the selection of party leadership may be a matter of more immediate concern. Although Kim leads Lee by about 200 votes, the gap is still close enough that any change in the wind might result in a different outcome.
The point was not lost on the two candidates. Kim accused Lee on Tuesday of “breaking the rules” when his spokesman criticized the DUP floor leader Park Jie-won for trying to win over the powerful Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). Park is a strong supporter of Lee, and the move was widely interpreted as an apparent attempt to secure the union’s 2,000 allocated votes.
“The unfairness of the leadership race has reached a highly dangerous level,” said Kim’s spokesman Jung Sung-ho at the National Assembly. “The floor leader’s behavior is a further evidence that Park and candidate Lee have colluded to bring about a favorable election result.”
Lee lost no time in mounting a political offense of his own, questioning Kim’s “political identity.”
“The chairman sets the party’s ideological course,” said Lee in a radio interview on Tuesday. “Kim has not made clear what his stance is on various issues. It is time to clarify his position.”
Kim in turn blamed Lee for “malicious propaganda.”
The frontrunner Kim Han-gil has defeated his archrival Lee Hae-chan eight times out of 10 regional elections conducted so far. Although the cast votes make up only 15 percent of the overall ballots, Kim has already dispelled the notion that Lee is the “inevitable” candidate poised to take the party’s leadership with ease.
At the start of the race, few paid much attention to Kim, who was an outsider and had relatively little connection to the current party leadership. Lee had a much more solid support platform, with the backing of two powerful heavyweights Moon Jae-in and Park Jie-won.
Moon, the strongest presidential contender within the DUP, is leading the party’s loyalists of the late former President Roh Moo-hyun and enjoys wide support among the party’s rank and file. Park has acted as the party’s de facto leader since it suffered an unexpected defeat in April’s parliamentary election.
The ensuing regional votes held across the nation were thus an unpleasant surprise to Lee. Repeatedly defeated by Kim, the much humbled Lee said he has never been an “inevitable candidate” and declared that he was “going back to the drawing board to start the whole campaign afresh.”
How effective Lee’s renewed determination will be is hard to gauge at the moment. The DUP is scheduled to hold a two-day mobile vote from June 5 and 6 and a separate on-site ballot on June 8. The results, however, will not be disclosed until the main opposition holds its last vote in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province at the party’s national convention on June 9.
The DUP’s leadership lineup will be decided the same day, including the party’s chairman and four other members of its Supreme Council. The leadership will be charged with preparing the party for the upcoming presidential election.
The chairman and the four members themselves will not run for the presidency seat, but the outcome of the election is still a matter of special interest. Whether the opposition party would manage to defeat the formidable Park Guen-hye of the ruling Saenuri party would hinge largely on the party’s choice of its leadership.