Roh Won the Primary Election in Kyungnam Area

At a primary election of the Kyungnam area for the election of the presidential candidate of the New Millennium Democratic Party on 30th, Mr. Roh Moo-Hyun won the victory, having 72.2 percent votes (1713 votes) out of 2372 valid votes.

By narrowing the gap with the leading candidate Rhee In-Je, who has collected 3857 votes (44.1 percent) through 7 primary elections by now, down to 445 votes, the primary elections in Daegu (3401 votes) on 5th, Incheon (3628 votes) on 6th, Kyungbuk (3859 votes) on 7th, are likely to be a watershed for the primary election.

NMDP has completed its primary elections in 8 areas including the Chunbuk area on 31st out of 16 areas in total, the electoral college of the 8 areas are only 25.8 percent of the total electoral colleges.

Mr. Rhee received only 468 votes (19.7 percent), which is 1245 votes less than that of Mr. Roh, but the accumulated votes that he had earned until then still maintained the top (4302 votes, 49.2 percent). Mr. Chung Dong-Young won 191 votes (8.1 percent), recording 584 votes in accumulation.

Meanwhile, controversies on localism is recurring by the vote results that show discriminate votes for a candidate of a certain area in addition to the votes in the Chungnam area. The voting rate in Kyungnam was 57.1 percent, which is the lowest one in the primary elections until now.

Yong-Gwan Jung yongari@donga.com