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Korea's leading political party leaders just can't seem to make up their minds. One month away from the general elections, the main opposition United Democratic Party and the ruling Grand National Party have yet to come up with their full list of candidates for the April 9 race.
After two days of heated overnight meetings at the UDP headquarters, the candidacy screening committee says it has performed background checks and is ruling out all nominees with fishy personal histories or connections to unlawful political funds.
Despite strong opposition within the party to loosen up on the strong stance, the party had no choice but to accept the outcome. Seven out of the total 12 voters said their nominees needed more transparency.
Party insiders say the screening process could shake out an estimated 30 percent of acting party members from the Jeolla Provinces.
As for the GNP, things are pretty much deadlocked. After days of negotiations not a single agreement has been made on deciding the candidacies for Daegu and Busan.
The GNP is also strengthening its qualification process for nominees including even existing lawmakers. This could mean up to a quarter of current lawmakers will be knocked out and so not surprisingly, the process is bogged down in debate.
Both parties say they expect nomination issues to be resolved any day now. But they're going to have to hurry in order to give final candidates enough time to gather voter support.
Arirang News
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