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Kim Moon-soo, Han Dong-hoon advance to final round of PPP primaries

Published: 29 Apr. 2025, 15:35

LIM JEONG-WON
[email protected]

People Power Party candidates Kim Moon-soo, left, and Han Dong-hoon, right, pose for a photo at the party headquarters in Yeouido in western Seoul after the announcement of the final round of candidates on April 29. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Candidates Kim Moon-soo and Han Dong-hoon advanced to the final round of the People Power Party (PPP) primaries on Tuesday, with Ahn Cheol-soo and Hong Joon-pyo dropped from the race.

The PPP’s election management committee announced the results of the second round of primary elections, which reflected 50 percent of party member votes and 50 percent of public opinion polls, at the party headquarters in Yeouido in western Seoul on Tuesday.

In the party member vote held between Sunday and Monday, 390,004 out of 765,773, or 50.93 percent, of members participated. The national opinion poll was conducted by five organizations, with 6,000 people surveyed.

The rankings and voting rates of the candidates were not disclosed. Therefore, it is not known who came out ahead between Kim and Han, both of whom advanced to the final round.

Kim, former minister of employment and labor, is a staunch conservative who has declared that he has “absolutely no intention of deliberately distancing himself from former President Yoon Suk Yeol.”

Han, former minister of justice under Yoon and former PPP leader, is widely seen as having turned against Yoon following the botched martial law declaration on Dec. 3.

Kim, who opposed the impeachment of Yoon, and Han, who supported it, are expected to run a competitive race between the anti-impeachment faction and the pro-impeachment faction in the final stage of the primary.

Both Kim and Han have argued that they are the best candidates the PPP has to beat Democratic Party (DP) presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, who won the DP primary by a historic 89.77 percent of his fellow DP party members' votes on Sunday.

After the two-party debate on Wednesday, the party member electoral college vote and the national opinion poll will take place on Thursday and Friday, respectively. The candidate with the most votes will be selected as the final presidential candidate at the party convention held at Kintex in Goyang, Gyeonggi at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [[email protected]]