Jeong Cheong-rae Takes 1st Place in DP's Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam Regional Primary with 46.6% of Votes

[Anchor]

Today is the second day of the regional primaries to elect the Democratic Party's new leadership. Candidate Jeong Cheong-rae was announced as the first-place winner in the rank-and-file member voting for the Busan, Ulsan, and South Gyeongnam regions. Let's go live to the scene.

Reporter Park Yerim, please start by giving us the results of the party leader candidate voting.

[Reporter]

I am here at Changwon National University, where the results of the Democratic Party's second regional primary have just been announced.

In the rank-and-file member vote for the Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam region, Candidate Jeong Cheong-rae came in first with 46.6% of the vote, while Candidate Kim Min-seok placed second with 43.8%.

Candidate Song Young-gil ranked third with 9.5%.

In yesterday's (August 1) rank-and-file member vote in the Chungcheong region, Candidate Kim led Candidate Jeong by a narrow margin of just 303 votes.

However, simply combining today's Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam voting results, Candidate Jeong leads Candidate Kim by about 1,200 votes, recording a cumulative vote share of 45.5% compared to Kim's 44.5%.

Furthermore, because Yeongnam regional votes carry a 5% weighting on the final day of the national convention, the vote gap could widen further.

[Anchor]

What was the atmosphere like during the candidates' speeches today?

[Reporter]

During today's joint speeches, the party leader candidates brought up issues such as suspicions surrounding Shincheonji's involvement and accountability for local elections, engaging in a heated war of words that even extended to mentions of referrals to the party's ethics committee.

Let's listen directly.

[Song Young-gil / Democratic Party Leadership Candidate: Shouldn't we defend those who attack the Lee Jae-myung administration? Why do fellow candidates attack while viewing writer Rhyu Si-min's curses through the eyes of Buddha?]

[Jeong Cheong-rae / Democratic Party Leadership Candidate: (Regarding the Shincheonji suspicions) Candidate Kim Min-seok, who has put the party at risk of being deemed unconstitutional, will definitely be referred to the ethics committee and judged if I become party leader.]

[Kim Min-seok / Democratic Party Leadership Candidate: Those who engaged in wrongful factional behavior, and those who made wrongful criticisms and incitements while a rival candidate was speaking, will face the judgment of the ethics committee.]

[Anchor]

There is also a lot of interest in the Supreme Council member election. Please give us those results.

[Reporter]

For the Supreme Council members, the top five out of eight candidates are selected.

Looking at today's rank-and-file member voting results in Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam, the top five rankings are Choi Min-hee, Park Sun-won, Han Min-soo, Seo Mi-hwa, and Kim Yong, which is identical to the ranking from yesterday's Chungcheong regional vote.

Among them, Candidates Choi Min-hee and Han Min-soo are classified as pro-Jeong.

Candidates Park Sun-won, Seo Mi-hwa, and Kim Yong are classified as pro-Lee.

However, with primaries in other regions such as Honam and the Seoul metropolitan area still remaining, and with delegate votes and public opinion polls that reflect the party leader election being tallied at the end, there are still many variables left.

(On-site production: Joo Yong-jin | Video reporting: Oh Young-chun | Video editing: Lee Seung-jin)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.