The unification renegotiations between Kim Moon-soo, the People Power Party presidential candidate, and Han Duck-soo, an independent presidential preliminary candidate, were held twice on the night of the 9th, but ultimately collapsed. The two sides failed to find common ground on whether to reflect the reverse voting prevention clause in the public opinion survey method for candidate unification.
As negotiations between the two candidates for unification have ultimately collapsed, the People Power Party leadership is expected to convene an emergency countermeasure committee and pass a 'candidate replacement' agenda. It is anticipated that the party will effectively proceed with steps to replace its presidential candidate.
Kim Jae-won, secretary to the Kim Moon-soo camp, met with reporters shortly after finishing the 'second unification negotiation' around 11:06 p.m. and said, 'There was no significant progress.'
Secretary Kim said, 'When I met with candidate Kim Moon-soo the day before and talked, he said, 'I will concede everything' and 'Do as you please,' but now he claims he absolutely cannot concede.' He criticized, 'The person who claimed to have delegated everything regarding the method and process of unification to the party only insists on their own claims when coming to negotiations. This is the true face of Han Duck-soo.'
He added, 'Since the unification negotiations themselves already seem to be in the process of ousting candidate Kim Moon-soo and promoting candidate Han Duck-soo by the party leadership, I believe the Han Duck-soo camp has no will for negotiation at all.' He continued, 'Although they verbally claim they have delegated the process of unification (to the party), in reality, they only seem to be pondering how to secure their own interests while disrupting the negotiations. This is extremely regrettable.'
Han Duck-soo's camp, Secretary Son Young-taek, also stated, 'We have earnestly engaged in negotiations with the party, but the negotiations did not go well.'
'The reason the negotiations did not go well is a principle that supporters backing Lee Jae-myung should not participate in unification elections to select the People Power Party's presidential candidate,' he explained. 'Breaking this principle made it difficult to continue negotiations.'
Earlier, both sides failed to narrow their positions on whether to include the reverse voting prevention clause in the survey questions during the resumed 'first unification negotiation' at 8:30 p.m. that night.
The Kim Moon-soo camp asserted that they would proceed with an 'ordinary public opinion survey' without reflecting the reverse voting prevention clause (with a sample of over 3,000).
In contrast, the Han Duck-soo camp had no disagreement regarding the 3,000 ARS, but opposed including questions about party support. The Han Duck-soo camp, where support is high among independents and moderates, advocates reflecting the questions about party support.
In other words, while the Kim Moon-soo camp suggested not reflecting the reverse voting prevention clause, the Han Duck-soo camp insisted that even if it is conducted as a general public opinion survey, the possibility of participation by supporters of the Democratic Party must be blocked.
With the unification negotiations ending without agreement, the People Power Party is expected to soon vote on the candidate replacement agenda in the emergency countermeasure committee. The People Power Party had previously decided to delegate the authority for candidate replacement to the emergency committee in the event of a collapse of the unification negotiations between Kim Moon-soo and Han Duck-soo.