One-on-one Meeting between Roh and Chung for Single Candidacy

The single candidacy talks between Chung Mong-joon, presidential nominee of National Alliance 21 (NA) and Roh Moo-hyun, presidential nominee of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) is getting momentum as Chung made the proposal of a meeting between the two candidates, Nov. 12, and Roh accepted the proposal. The talks to field a single candidate once came to a deadlock because of their differences over the scope of subjects of the opinion poll.

At a press conference held in the party office in Yeoido, Seoul, on the morning of Nov. 12, Chung said, "A contact between Roh and him is needed to make sure that a single candidate is chosen, effectively put together the two candidates’ energy, discuss pending political issues, and better understand each other individually."

He also added, "If there is some problem in the contact of each camp’s delegations for the single candidacy negotiation, Roh and I could meet to continue the negotiation. Though [As for the manner to choose a single candidate] each side is said to stick to its own opinion, it is not a big problem, only a technical one."

On the afternoon of that day, Roh’s camp held a party emergency meeting, in which they decided to accept Chung’s proposal. However, an immediate meeting between the two seems impossible as Roh’s camp is suggesting preliminary contacts for the Roh-Chung meeting to Chung.

As for Chung’s proposal, Lee Nak-yeon, spokesman of the MDP election preparation committee, said, "The meeting between the two candidates should be to put on final touches to the negotiation to succeed in fielding a single candidate. The form of preliminary contacts could be whatever Chung wants."

In response to Roh’s suggestion to hold preliminary contacts, Chung said, "Either working-level meetings or direct talks can go. I’ll follow whichever Roh chooses."

Meanwhile, each camp’s delegation of 6 lawmakers for negotiation had an unofficial contact on the same day and discussed the deadline for the single candidacy talks, the number of TV debates to be held and the scope of subjects of the opinion poll. Lee Hae-chan, chief negotiator for the MDP said that they should first hold a joint debate session on TV and continue the negotiation for the way of choosing a single candidate. However, Chung’s camp clung to its earlier position that the way of choosing one should be decided on first and then the opinion poll should be conducted on the same number of representatives from each party.

Sung-Won Park Jeong-Hun Kim swpark@donga.com jnghn@donga.com