“Chose Only Anti-Roh Candidates,” Says Opposition Parties

There has been a sensation that three opposing parties expressed angry responses as “The Civilian Solidarity for General Elections,” a gathering of 288 civic groups, announced a list of the 66 recognized candidates for the 17th general election as unqualified candidates on February 5.

In particular, the propriety of equality occurred as some of the criteria for selecting failures for nomination suggested by the Civilian Solidarity for General Elections are said to be random, and in the case of the list of the migratory-bird politicians, the Grand National Party was intensively selected while the Uri Party was mostly ruled out from the list.

The Civilian Solidarity for General Elections announced the list of the 66 recognized candidates in total including 32 candidates of the GNP, 20 candidates of the MDP, seven of the Uri Party, three of the United Liberal Democrats, one candidate of the Nation Unity 21, one candidate of Lee Han-dong’s splinter party, and two independent candidates after the press conference this morning.

The Civilian Solidarity for General Elections considered the behaviors of: anti-national assembly, anti-electorate including corrupt behaviors, past records of destruction of constitutionalism, anti-human rights, disobedience to the general election and repeated migratory politicians as well as violations of the elections law with invalidity of election results as the primary criteria, and they selected failures for nomination by applying attitudes about reform bills and policies, as well as an additional criteria of the sense of morality.

“There is a high possibility to include incumbent lawmakers who were not included on the list today. At the second announcement on February 10, we will consider announcing the third and fourth lists. Additionally, we will be watching the prosecutor’s investigation processes,” said Kim Ki-sik, a co-chairman of an executive committee.

In response to this, the leader of the GNP Choe Byung-yul stated, “Civilian movements for failures in election and nomination already turned out to be illegal. Hence we will find out countermeasures such as indictment after questioning the Election Administration Committee,” implying a plan for legal confrontation.

Jang Jeon-hyung, the chief vice-spokesperson of the MDP, insisted through his comments that, “This announcement passed over politicians who made their choices favorable to President Roh and selected anti-Roh politicians at random.” Meanwhile, the central election administration committee stated, “Organizations are allowed to simply announce a roster of winning the election or failures for nomination decided by the organizational opinions through fair criteria before or during the election period at the press conference or in newspapers.”

Young-Chan Yoon In-Jik Cho yyc11@donga.com cij1999@donga.com