[Anchor]
In the primary for ordinary party members in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province—the final regional tour for the Democratic Party's national convention—party leader candidate Kim Min-seok claimed first place. Based on cumulative vote shares, leading candidate Kim holds an 8.4 percentage point lead over second-place candidate Chung Cheong-rae. With the results of the public opinion poll incorporated today (August 17), the new leadership that will lead the Democratic Party will be finalized.
Reporter Park Jae-yeon has the details.
[Reporter]
In the ordinary party member vote in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province for the election of the Democratic Party's new leadership, party leader candidate Kim Min-seok ranked first with 46.66% of the vote.
Candidate Chung Cheong-rae came in second with 46.28%, and candidate Song Young-gil placed third with 7.06%.
The cumulative vote shares so far stand at 49.91% for candidate Kim and 41.51% for candidate Chung, narrowing the gap to 8.4 percentage points.
Following candidate Kim's landslide victory in the Honam primary two days ago, the vote gap with second-place candidate Chung had widened significantly to 14 percentage points, but yesterday's neck-and-neck race between the two candidates in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province narrowed the margin.
However, as candidate Kim maintained the momentum from his landslide victory in Honam two days ago, some analyze that the argument for stabilizing party-government relations also influenced party sentiment in the capital region.
During their joint speeches, the three candidates appealed that each was the most qualified person to support the success of the Lee Jae-myung administration.
[Kim Min-seok / Democratic Party Leader Candidate : The party must be stable. Only then can the party and the government be stable. Only then can the administration be stable. Only then can the economy be stable.]
[Chung Cheong-rae / Democratic Party Leader Candidate : Loyalty is kept by those who have kept it. If you betray once, you can betray again.]
[Song Young-gil / Democratic Party Leader Candidate : I will lead the effort to make the North Korea-U.S. summit a success and transform the Cold War issue on the Korean Peninsula.]
The remaining variables are the public opinion poll results, which account for a 30% weight, and the votes of approximately 17,000 delegates.
Analysts suggest that second-place candidate Chung, who trails by 8.4 percentage points as of yesterday, would need to lead by at least 16 percentage points in the public opinion poll to pull off a reversal.
If the first-place candidate fails to secure a majority even after the total aggregation, the winner will be determined by recalculating the second-choice preferences of voters who cast their ballots for the third-place candidate.
The Democratic Party will hold its national convention in Daejeon today to announce the final results, combining the delegate votes and public opinion poll outcomes.
(Video by Lim Woo-shik and Kim Yong-woo | Video Editing by Won Hyung-hee)
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