What’s your nomination standard anyway?

The election management committee of the Democratic Party (DP) has decided to eliminate ResearchDNA from conducting the party’s polls on the competitiveness of its candidates after suspicions arose over the fairness of its surveys. The JoongAng Ilbo has found that the polling agency was abruptly added after the DP had chosen its polling firm ahead of the April 10 parliamentary elections. The surveyor in question turned out to have conducted opinion polls on Seongnam citizens when DP leader Lee Jae-myung was the mayor. Rep. Jung Pil-mo, head of the election management committee, resigned over dubious poll results from ResearchDNA.

After Jung tried to learn why the suspicious poll company was added at the last minute, working-level officials of the party could not answer his questions. Frustrated, Jung resigned as head of the election management committee after taking responsibility for the confusion. Some party insiders attributed it to Lee’s push for the polling agency. But the truth is yet to be found.

In reaction, the DP leader defended his decision, saying there was no problem with the addition of the polling firm, because more than 10 years have passed since his city government commissioned it to conduct polls. And yet, the polling firm did take part in evaluating DP candidates’ performance as lawmakers over the past four years. Legislators not loyal to Lee can hardly understand why they have to drop out of the party race for the upcoming election. An increasing number of DP lawmakers have started protesting the opaque nomination process.

Amid the ongoing chaos, 15 of the 17 current lawmakers, who were allowed to run in a single-candidate constituency, were pro-Lee lawmakers. But four lawmakers not loyal to Lee must compete with their rivals who faithfully followed the party leader outside the legislature. That’s not all. Some anti-Lee lawmakers must suffer up to a 30 percent cut in their evaluation scores after being classified as the lowest 30 percent performance group.

Asked why Rep. Lee Gae-ho has become a single nominee in a district in South Jeolla, nomination committee chair Lim Hyuk-baek explained that the party’s special guideline allows a candidate to be nominated as a single candidate if he or she shows a big gap in popularity with their competitors. But a recent poll conducted by MBC in his constituency showed all three competitors are in a tight race within the margin of error. How can the party explain that?

Rep. Lee Gae-ho was appointed as head of the party’s policy committee by Lee Jae-myung. Does it mean the so-called “Lee Jae-myung premium” worked for him? We hope the party leader asks himself why cynicism — “If you are close to Lee, you are safe. Otherwise, you are dead.” — is deepening fast in the majority party.