Seoul and Busan Mayoral By-Election Round 1 Nears Completion

Democratic Party to Announce on Next Month's 1st and 6th
People Power Party to Announce Simultaneously on 4th
Likely to Enter Unification Phase Immediately

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] The major party lineups for the April 7 by-elections to elect the Mayor of Seoul and the Mayor of Busan are gradually taking shape.

On the 25th, the Democratic Party, the People Power Party, and the third zone parties will begin the primary schedules to finalize their candidates. On this day, Democratic Party preliminary candidates for Seoul Mayor Park Young-sun and Woo Sang-ho will hold a TV debate. Democratic Party preliminary candidates for Busan Mayor Kim Young-choon, Park In-young, and Byun Sung-wan will hold a radio debate. The Democratic Party will conduct an online vote among Seoul Mayor party members (50%) on the 26th and 27th, then decide the final Seoul Mayor candidate on the 1st of next month, and the Busan Mayor candidate on the 6th.

The final TV debate to select the People Power Party candidate for Busan Mayor will also be held on the 25th. Preliminary candidate Park Min-sik, who participated in the primary, agreed to unify with preliminary candidate Lee Eon-ju and withdrew. TV debates to select the party’s Seoul Mayor candidate will be held on the 26th and the following day, the 1st. Currently, preliminary candidates Na Kyung-won, Oh Se-hoon, Oh Shin-hwan, and Cho Eun-hee are competing. The People Power Party will announce the final candidates for Seoul and Busan Mayor simultaneously on the 4th. In the third zone, preliminary candidates Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party and Geum Tae-seop, an independent, will hold their final debate on YouTube on the 25th. They will decide a unified candidate through a 100% public opinion survey and announce it on the 1st of next month.

Even after candidates are decided by party, there remains the process of unifying candidates between the pro-government and opposition camps. The Democratic Party will begin negotiations for unifying pro-government candidates as soon as the Seoul Mayor candidate is decided. The unification counterparts are preliminary candidates Kim Jin-ae of the Open Democratic Party and Cho Jung-hoon of the Transition Korea Party. In the opposition camp, the People Power Party’s final Seoul Mayor candidate and the third zone’s final candidate will negotiate. It is expected that public opinion surveys will be used as the method of decision. However, the survey targets and questions for unification will become major issues in the upcoming opposition camp candidate unification process.