Kim Min-seok Wins Landslide in Honam… Seoul and Gyeonggi Primaries Today

[Anchor]
 
The Democratic Party will elect its next leader tomorrow (the 17th). During yesterday's Honam regional primary, candidate Kim Min-seok secured a landslide victory over candidate Jung Chung-rae by winning a majority of the votes.

Reporter Go Jeong-hyeon has the details.

[Reporter]

In the rank-and-file party member voting for South Jeolla-Gwangju and North Jeolla regions at the Democratic Party national convention, party leadership candidate Kim Min-seok took first place with approximately 139,000 votes.

Candidate Jung Chung-rae placed second with about 79,000 votes, while candidate Song Young-gil came in third with roughly 23,000 votes.

Prior to this, candidate Kim Min-seok held a narrow lead of about 3,000 votes over candidate Jung Chung-rae, but following the Honam primary, the cumulative vote gap widened to about 63,000 votes.

The cumulative vote shares stand at 52.21% for candidate Kim and 38.14% for candidate Jung, widening the margin to about 14 percentage points.

However, this figure does not include the 5% weighting applied solely to votes from Daegu, North Gyeongsang, and South Gyeongsang.

Analysts suggest that Kim's landslide victory in Honam was driven by expectations surrounding the push for a Honam semiconductor base under the government's "three major mega-projects," as well as Honam party members' judgment regarding who is closer to President Lee Jae-myung.

During joint speeches, the three candidates appealed for support from the Honam party base.


[Song Young-gil / Democratic Party Leadership Candidate: While the Honam son-in-law (Jung Chung-rae) is great, shouldn't we give strength to our son? The son of Honam has returned, everyone.]

[Kim Min-seok / Democratic Party Leadership Candidate: I will make sure that figures like (People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jin-sook), who are like a female Chun Doo-hwan or a female Hitler, cannot set foot in the Republic of Korea.]

[Jung Chung-rae / Democratic Party Leadership Candidate: Please join hands with Jung Chung-rae, a strong reform-minded party leader.]


In the Supreme Council race to elect five members, cumulative results of the rank-and-file member voting show candidates Park Sun-won, Choi Min-hee, Seo Mi-hwa, Kim Yong, and Han Min-su ranking first through fifth respectively, placing them currently within the winning zone.

The lineup consists of three pro-Lee Jae-myung figures and two pro-Jung figures.

Following today's regional primaries in Seoul and Gyeonggi, the Democratic Party will combine the public opinion poll results at tomorrow's national convention to elect the next party leader.

(Photo: Yonhap News) (Note: Video coverage by Bae Moon-san, Video editing by Park Sun-su)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.