Seoul: Official campaigning for the June 3 presidential election will begin this week with the close of candidate registration on Sunday.
The 22-day campaign period will kick off Monday, allowing candidates and their campaign teams to give speeches in public places between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., distribute leaflets and other campaign materials, and put up campaign banners, Yonhap news agency reported.
The election, triggered by the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law bid in December, has shaped up to be a contest between Lee Jae-myung of the liberal Democratic Party and Kim Moon-soo of the conservative People Power Party.
Kim’s candidacy was confirmed only Saturday following intraparty strife over which of two people — Kim or former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo — would be better suited to defeat Lee, who has maintained a wide lead in favorability polls.
Lee’s plan is to consolidate that lead by wooing swing voters with promises to improve the economy and people’s livelihoods, and promote national unity.
Kim, meanwhile, is set to adopt the conservatives’ strategy of building a broad “big tent” coalition to counter Lee.
The success of that strategy is likely to hinge on whether he can win the support of former Prime Minister Han, Lee Jun-seok, the presidential candidate of the minor New Reform Party, and other political heavyweights.
On Saturday, the People Power Party’s (PPP) all-member meeting voted down a motion led by the party’s leadership to replace him with former Prime Minister Han Duck-woo as the party’s presidential candidate, ending a weeklong internal dispute between him and the leadership.
Kim, a former labor minister, had secured the party’s nomination through the primaries but had since come under intense pressure from the party leadership to merge campaigns with Han, who had polled better in hypothetical matchups with front-runner Lee Jae-myung of the liberal Democratic Party.
(IANS)
