Were the Uri Party Primaries a Waste of Time?

In the completely liberalized and democratized Uri Party primaries, scouted candidates are losing out one by one to “Native Son” local candidates, making the primaries an exercise in futility.

Last month, on the 28th, in the Taejon Western district primary, Park Bum-gae, the Secretary of Legal Affairs under the previous Presidential administration, lost to candidate Koo Non-hee, head of a learning institute. In addition, in the Seoul Un Pyong district primary, a second scouted candidate Choi Chang-hwan, former “E-Daily” representative, lost to a local candidate who had already built up a base in the district.

Following this, MBC radio economics columnist Kim Bang-hee (Seoul, Suh Dae Moon district), Park Jung, President of the “Park Jung Language Institute” (Kyonggi Province, Paju district), Military corps head Kwon Oh-gap (Kyonggi Province, Goyang, Dukyang district), and a former Department of Science and Technology Vice Chief, all lost in their respective primaries. It is likely that there will be controversy over low voter turnout (an average of 300-500 voters in a primary) and the fact that the scouted candidates were not given the chance to publicize their campaigns before the primaries. In fact, the Seoul Kwanak district primary that was scheduled for the 29th, was cancelled because the 1016 voters that showed up, made up less than the 0.5% of the district population minimally required for the primary to be held.

The deadline for registration for proportional representative candidate seats was the 29th. As of today at 4:30 p.m., the following candidates have registered: Kim Myung-ja, former Minister of the Environmental Affairs Bureau; spokesperson Park Young-son; Yang Seung-sook, General of the Army Reserve; Park Young-sook, President of the Korea Foster Parents Association; Choi Seung-jin, former Consul; and Kim Jin-ho, former President of the Advisor’s Association. In total, 173 persons (131 males, 44 females) have registered.

Very soon, the Uri Party plans to select candidates through a proportionate representative selection committee and decide their turns for selection through a separate order selection committee. However, even assuming that the number of proportionate representative seats remain at the present 46, there will still be a lot of commotion over the roughly 20 seats at most, that are targeted to be guaranteed.

Hoon Lee dreamland@donga.com