Seoul and Gyeonggi Primaries Today; Kim Min-seok Secures Landslide Victory in Honam

[Anchor]

Ahead of the Democratic Party's convention tomorrow (August 17) to elect its next party leader, the results of the regional primary tours for Seoul and Gyeonggi Province will be announced this evening.

Reporter Son Hyeong-an has the details.

[Reporter]

The Democratic Party will announce the results of the ordinary party member votes for Seoul and Gyeonggi Province this evening, marking the final regional primary tour to select the new leadership.

At tomorrow's national convention in Daejeon, the final results will be announced by combining the cumulative regional ordinary party member voting results with public opinion poll results.

In yesterday's Honam regional primary, based on the ordinary party member voting results in Gwangju, South Jeolla Province, and North Jeolla Province, party leader candidate Kim Min-seok ranked first with approximately 139,000 votes.

Candidate Jeong Cheong-rae came in second with about 79,000 votes, and candidate Song Young-gil placed third with roughly 23,000 votes.

Just before this, candidate Kim Min-seok, who was in first place, led candidate Jeong Cheong-rae by a margin of about 3,000 votes, but following the Honam primary, the cumulative vote gap widened to approximately 63,000 votes.

The cumulative vote shares stood at 52.21 percent for candidate Kim and 38.14 percent for candidate Jeong, widening the gap to about 14 percentage points.

However, this figure does not include the 5 percent weight applied exclusively to votes from Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province, and South Gyeongsang Province.

Analysts suggest that candidate Kim's landslide victory in Honam was driven by expectations surrounding the government's promotion of a Honam semiconductor base under the 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 Honam party members.

[Song Young-gil / Democratic Party Leadership Candidate: While the son-in-law of Honam (Jeong Cheong-rae) is great, shouldn't we give strength to our own 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 is like a female Chun Doo-hwan or a female Hitler, cannot set foot in the Republic of Korea.]

[Jeong Cheong-rae / Democratic Party Leadership Candidate: Please join hands with Jeong Cheong-rae, a strong reformist party leader.]

As for the supreme council member election, which selects five members, the cumulative results up to the Honam regional primary show candidates Park Sun-won, Choi Min-hee, Seo Mi-hwa, Kim Yong, and Han Min-su ranking first through fifth in that order, forming a lineup of three pro-Lee Jae-myung figures and two pro-Jeong Cheong-rae figures.

(Photo: Bae Moon-san, Video Editing: Wi Won-yang)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.