Single Candidate Will Be Announced as Early as Tomorrow

As Roh Moo-hyun and Chung Mong-joon, presidential candidates respectively from the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) and National Alliance 21 reached agreement at the last minute, opinion polls to choose a single candidate between them have started on the afternoon of Nov. 24.

The two parties are scheduled to announce a unified candidate based on the result of the polls on Nov. 26.

They were supposed to start the survey on Nov. 23, but as some polling agencies they requested to conduct the polls, including Korea Gallup, rejected the request, they couldn’t. Then at an emergency meeting, they decided polling agencies including two only known as W and R.

Kim Haeng, spokeswoman of National Alliance 21 said, "Polling agencies will conduct the survey on their own and whoever win more surveys will be selected as a single candidate. Though the polls themselves will be completed in one day, the result will be announced as early as Nov. 25."

She also added, "If the two candidates tie in a pollster’s survey, or there are a sign of Grand National Party supporters’ intentional attempts to distort the polls in favor of its candidate, Lee Hoi-chang, or any serious problems are found, the pollster should do the survey again. But because there is some device in place to prevent such things, the possibility of conducting the survey again is very rare."

The two parties are reported to have commissioned more than one pollster to conduct the survey and have agreed that if who would be the winner was not clear in the first survey, a second, or a third one, would take place.

Shin Gye-ryun, chief secretary to the presidential nominee of the MDP, said, "Though there is a clause in the statement of agreement made by the two parties which states invalidation of the survey, the two parties are not likely to get into a wrangling over the issue, because of some devices in place to prevent a situation, where the survey becomes invalid. The rumors that if the popularity rating of Lee Hoi-chang is lower than his average rating, the result of the survey is unconditionally regarded as invalid are not true."

Meanwhile, after visiting Busan and south Gyeongsang province on that day, Roh Moo-hyun headed for Gwangju, Jeonju and Daejeon, unlike his original plan to come back to Seoul. On the other hand, Chung Mong-joon asked for support in Gwangju and Jeonju following his visit to Yeosu, Busan and Daegu the day before.

On that day, the MDP criticized National Alliance 21 for sending text messages saying "Support to Chung for the single candidacy" to voters’ cellular phones randomly. But National Alliance 21 retorted that the MDP was conducting illegal election campaigns using automatic response system (ARS).

Young-Chan Yoon Sung-Won Park yyc11@donga.com swpark@donga.com