The DP’s never-ending dubious nominations

The litany of grievances gets longer and longer over the way the Democratic Party (DP) is nominating its candidates for the April 10 parliamentary elections, as they only serve to benefit the party’s leader, Lee Jae-myung. The latest involves a former secretary of Lee’s wife, Kim Hye-kyung.

After a late-night supreme council meeting last Friday, the DP announced that it would designate the constituency representing Suncheon, Gwangyang, Gokseong and Gurye in South Jeolla — a traditional voting base for the liberal party — as a strategic constituency for women. Then the party leadership nominated a female candidate named Kwon Hyang-yeop as the single candidate for the upcoming legislative election. Kwon served as Kim’s secretary during her husband Lee’s campaign as the DP candidate in the presidential election two years ago.

The idea of creating a special constituency for a female candidate came out of the blue. Some in the supreme council proposed holding a primary so as not to stoke any unnecessary controversy over favoritism. But the DP nevertheless announced her nomination to the surprise of Rep. Seo Dong-young, who currently represents the constituency. In polls conducted late December, Seo overwhelmed Kwon with 28 percent support for him versus 7 percent for Kwon. A poll taken a month later also showed Seo comfortably leading Kwon at 26 percent versus 12 percent. Despite Seo’s decisive lead over Kwon — and even though Seo was not included in the bottom 20-percent in the party’s evaluation of its lawmakers’ performance over the past four years — Seo was cut off from his candidacy for the election.

Rep. Seo strongly protested the party’s decision to cancel the primary to help Kwon by improvising a “female-special” constituency. Other members grumbled about adding fire to the bad publicity over the party’s dubious nomination process. The issue was even debated online among fans of Lee.

Kim, the wife of Lee, is facing trial for breaking the Election Act. Two former senior prosecutors — Park Kyun-taek and Yang Bu-nam who as lawyers defended Lee against his criminal charges in the court — received preferential points to win their candidacy to run in the legislative election.

The governing People Power Party has ratcheted up its attacks on the DP for recruiting not just defenders of Lee on criminal charges but also a secretary of his wife.

Out of the DP’s 23 key members, 21 were exempted from primaries to earn candidacies. Except for DP spokesperson Park Sung-joon waiting for a primary, all members of Lee’s inner circle were nominated as single candidates. The voters will deliver their verdict on the malpractice on Election Day.