People Power Party Haman and Geochang County Primary Results Suspended... Court Grants Injunction to Eliminated Candidates

Court: "Scale of Membership List Leak Was Considerable"


Determined Loss of Objective Rationality and Validity

With about a month remaining until the 9th nationwide local elections scheduled for June 3, the court has accepted injunction requests filed by preliminary candidates who were eliminated in the People Power Party's primary races for the county head positions in Haman and Geochang.

Park Deokhum, Chairman of the Nomination Committee of the People Power Party, and the committee members are announcing the results of the candidate nominations for the June 3 by-elections at the People Power Party central office in Yeouido, Seoul, on the 1st. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

On May 4, the 21st Civil Division of the Changwon District Court granted the injunction requests filed by Lee Sungyong and Lee Bomyung, both former preliminary candidates for Haman County head, to suspend the effect of the People Power Party primary nominations.

As a result, the effect of the nomination of Cho Youngje, former Gyeongsangnam-do provincial assembly member, as the People Power Party's candidate for Haman County head through the party's primary, has been suspended.

The court determined that there were indications that the party membership list had been leaked before the official delivery of the voter list, and that it was used for preliminary campaign activities.

The court stated, "The scale of the membership list leak was also considerable compared to the number of responsible party members," and added, "Nevertheless, the People Power Party's Gyeongsangnam-do Nomination Management Committee announced the primary results without conducting any investigation."

The court further explained that this constituted "an act that has clearly lost objective rationality and validity to a degree that undermines the essence" of the process.

The same court division also accepted an injunction request to suspend the effect of the re-primary results, filed by two preliminary candidates for Geochang County head who had been excluded from the re-primary due to responsibility for the membership list leak. Consequently, the effect of the re-primary result in which Gu Inmo was nominated as the Geochang County head candidate has also been suspended.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.