By Lee Tae-hoon
Underdogs in the main opposition Democratic United Party’s (DUP) presidential primary raised allegations Tuesday that Rep. Moon Jae-in, frontrunner in the liberal party’s nomination race, violated the election law.
Sohn Hak-kyu, former chairman of the DUP, said that Moon’s camp carried out a telephone campaign aimed at persuading voters to elect the former chief of staff to the late President Roh Moo-hyun through mobile voting.
Under Article 60 of the Public Official Election Act, “Appealing for support by means of direct telephone conversations” is banned during primary elections.
Sohn claimed that an official of Moon’s camp sent a set of telephone campaign guidelines via email to tens of party officials, including Rep. Lee Hae-chan, incumbent leader of the party, and Lee’s chief of staff Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon.
According to the missive that Sohn’s camp made public, telephone operators are instructed to encourage Moon’s supporters to take part in the election and make efforts to woo support from non-supporters.
“The primary election has been dogged by problems of mobile voting and collusive ties between the party leadership and the party’s main faction,” Sohn said. “No matter who is elevated as the party’s standard bearer, he will need to indentify the causes of the problems.”
Sohn said that the DUP will continue to be engulfed in scandals unless it addresses loopholes in the party’s election rules.
Kim Doo-kwan, former governor of South Gyeongsang Province, also attacked Moon over his alleged breach of the election law, urging the party’s leadership to take a prompt, stern action against those responsible for the dispute.
“(Moon) clearly violated the election law by operating a telephone campaign team,” he said. “It is a serious crime punishable by a prison term of up to three years or a fine of up to 6 million won ($5,270).”
An official of the National Election Commission (NEC) said that the election watchdog is reviewing whether Moon’s operation of a telephone campaign team violated the law.
“The law prohibits telephone campaigns,” he said. “It will take some time to look into Moon’s case and the specific activities of his telephone campaign team.”
The official said that the NEC may not be able to impose a punishment if Moon’s telephone campaign team sought voter participation without asking them to support a certain candidate.
Moon admitted that the controversial email that Sohn disclosed was sent by one of his camp volunteers, but rejected allegations that he operates an illicit telephone campaign team.
“The campaign guideline or email contains no information that calls for support for Moon Jae-in,” he said in a statement.
“It was a simple document that calls for greater participation in the primary, rather than support for a certain candidate.