The presidential primary contest for the Democratic United Party (DUP) is to enter the most critical stage this week, as party members and residents of Gwangju and surrounding South Jeolla Province, the main opposition party's traditional power base with the largest number of voters in the nation, go to the polls on Thursday.
Observers said Monday that 140,000 people have registered to vote in the Gwangju-South Jeolla primary, which represents the largest number reported for the DUP regional primary that began on Aug. 25 on Jeju Island.
They said the results of the race are closely watched because the region had played a role in making "strategic selections" to pick the country's presidents in the past.
The support by South Jeolla and Gwangju for Roh Moo-hyun in 2002 played a crucial role in the human rights lawyer winning the liberal party's presidential ticket and going on to beat a conservative nominee for the country's chief executive post.
"The sheer number of voters should help determine if the DUP can announce the winner of its primary on Sept. 16 or will be forced to hold a run-off election, a must if no single candidate wins more than 50 percent of votes cast," a political observer said.
At present, Moon Jae-in, the former chief of staff for late President Roh, is in the lead with 46.2 percent of all votes cast, followed by former Gyeonggi Province Governor Sohn Hak-kyu. The two front-runners are trailed by former South Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Doo-kwan and former Commerce Minister Chung Sye-kyun who each earned 14.7 percent and 13.3 percent of votes counted so far.
Campaign managers for Moon, who has been consistently ahead in the polls, said a good showing in South Jeolla and Gwangju should make it unnecessary to prepare for a run-off election.
"Every effort will be made to win as many votes as possible on Thursday," an official said.
On the other hand, Sohn, who is running second, wants to prevent Moon from extending his lead. This view was shared by Kim and Chung.
The DUP's primary, meanwhile, is being hurt by infighting among candidates with Sohn, Kim and Chung all claiming that the mobile elections are grossly distorting the views of party members.
The three trailing candidates said while Moon has won 46.2 percent of all mobile ballots, which account for 92.0 percent of votes cast, other candidates have overtaken him in off-line votes and ballots cast by party members.
Sohn stood at No. 1 among voters who cast their ballots at regional polling stations and among party members. These two types of votes, however, only accounted for 6.3 percent and 1.7 percent of the ballots cast so far.
Moon has said that the mobile votes are the true reflection of public sentiment and should be respected, while rivals claimed the primary is biased with the DUP leadership favoring the current front-runner. (Yonhap)