Democratic Party of Korea leadership candidates Song Yeong-gil, Jung Chung-rae and Kim Min-seok salute the national flag at a joint campaign speech event for party leader and supreme council member candidates at Suwon General Stadium indoor gymnasium in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, on Sunday. [Yonhap]
Democratic Party of Korea leadership candidates Song Yeong-gil, Jung Chung-rae and Kim Min-seok salute the national flag at a joint campaign speech event for party leader and supreme council member candidates at Suwon General Stadium indoor gymnasium in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, on Sunday. [Yonhap]

The Democratic Party of Korea is holding its Seoul and Gyeonggi Province regional primaries Sunday as part of the Aug. 17 national convention to select the party's next leadership.

Kim Min-seok secured a dominant majority in the Honam region — covering South Jeolla Province, Gwangju and North Jeolla Province — on Saturday, and attention has turned to whether rival Jung Chung-rae can stage a dramatic comeback in the greater Seoul area, the final stop on the regional primary circuit.

The party held a joint campaign speech event at Suwon General Stadium indoor gymnasium in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, in the morning, and will hold another at Kintex in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, in the afternoon. Party leader candidates Song Yeong-gil, Jung Chung-rae and Kim Min-seok, along with supreme council member candidates Choi Min-hee, Kim Yong, Kim Yeong-ho, Seo Mi-hwa, Han Min-su, Lee Sung-yoon, Park Seon-won and Im Mi-ae, are each delivering policy speeches at the events.

After the speeches conclude, tallied results of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province rights-holding member votes will be released. The party conducted online voting Wednesday through Thursday, followed by automated response system voting Friday through Saturday.

Kim moved within striking distance of the party leadership after sweeping Honam, long considered the most critical battleground. Before the Honam results, the cumulative vote share gap between Kim and second-place Jung stood at just 1.48 percentage points, excluding the 5 percent weighting applied to South Gyeongsang Province, Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. Kim then pulled 57.54 percent of the Honam rights-holding member vote against Jung's 32.65 percent — a margin of 24.89 percentage points — widening the overall cumulative gap to 14.07 percentage points.

Most observers see Jung as cornered, but high voter enthusiasm in the Seoul-Gyeonggi area — home to roughly one-third of all rights-holding party members — remains a potential wild card in the final stretch. Online turnout in Gyeonggi Province (46.74 percent) and Seoul (45.31 percent) ran about 10 percentage points higher than in South Jeolla Province and Gwangju (37.63 percent) and North Jeolla Province (35.22 percent). Some in the party calculate that if Jung wins the greater Seoul vote by more than 20 percentage points, he could reignite a comeback. Song, trailing with a cumulative 9.65 percent, has vowed to stay in the race to the end.

After the Seoul and Gyeonggi tallies are finalized Sunday, the party plans to combine those results with delegate votes and a public opinion poll — weighted at 30 percent — and announce the final winner at its third regular national convention, to be held Monday at Daejeon Convention Center.


sunpine@heraldcorp.com