South Korean Democratic Party debates preferential voting system ahead of leadership election

The Democratic Party of South Korea is experiencing internal conflict over the proposed adoption of a preferential voting system for its August 17 national convention to elect a new party leader. The party's supreme council engaged in a heated debate on the matter on July 10, but failed to reach a consensus, scheduling another meeting for later that night to finalize the decision.

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The preferential voting system is our party's runoff voting method, adopted through legitimate interpretation of party bylaws and decision-making processes under the leadership of party leader Lee Jae-myung, and it is a legacy left by President Lee. To postpone the decision now simply because it is disadvantageous to a specific candidate is to try to overturn the decision based on advantage or disadvantage, which is the beginning of privatizing the party.

The preferential voting system, as outlined by the party's preliminary committee, involves eliminating the lowest-ranking candidate in multi-candidate races if no one secures an absolute majority. The votes for the eliminated candidate would then be redistributed to the top two candidates based on second preferences. This method was initially approved but faced backlash from factions supporting former party leader Lee Jae-myung, who argued it violates party regulations.

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The reason why a norm that has been uncontested for a year suddenly becomes a rule violation in the process of setting the rules before candidate registration cannot be explained other than by calculating advantage or disadvantage.

Despite the controversy, the preliminary committee reaffirmed its decision, stating the system does not contravene party bylaws. The core of the dispute lies in the interpretation of Article 25 of the party's constitution and Article 66 of its regulations, which stipulate that the party leader must be elected by an absolute majority, with runoff elections detailed in party regulations. Opponents argue that preferential voting is not a runoff election.

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The party regulations clearly distinguish between preferential voting and runoff voting as separate voting methods, and define runoff voting as the method for determining the winner of the party leader election. Revising the rules a week before the election will cause another controversy.

Supreme council members publicly clashed over the issue. Hwang Myung-seon, who has opposed Lee Jae-myung, defended the preferential voting system as a legitimate runoff method established under Lee's leadership, criticizing attempts to overturn it as "the beginning of privatizing the party." Conversely, Kang Deuk-gu, allied with former Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, suggested that the sudden opposition to the rule, previously uncontested for a year, is driven by calculations of advantage or disadvantage. Moon Jung-bok and Lee Sung-yoon, both aligned with Lee Jae-myung, countered that the party regulations clearly distinguish between preferential and runoff voting and that changing the rules so close to the election would cause further controversy.

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Before discussing advantage or disadvantage, applying the preferential voting system, which clearly violates the party constitution and regulations, is only possible by going through a revision of the party constitution and regulations, as President Lee Jae-myung did.