United New Democratic Party
The Grand Unified Democratic New Party was a political party of South Korea. It was known as the Future Creative Grand Unified Democratic New Party until 5 August 2007. It was formed out of the Uri Party and its resulting splinter groups. Chung Dong-young was the UNDP candidate in the 2007 South Korean presidential election; he lost to Lee Myung-bak. On February 17, 2008, the party merged with the Democratic Party to form the United Democratic Party.
Brief history
The party was formed when loyalists to president Roh Moo-hyun in the Uri Party chose to break ranks from other party members who showed lukewarm support for the administration. Some 80 out of 152 lawmakers of the Uri Party joined the new party, a conservative-liberal minority group from the Hannara Party, and a group of progressive civil rights' group from outside South Korean politics also joined, seeking to complete political reforms.As a result of merge with the Uri Party, this party has been ranked as the biggest political party in the legislative by 140 of 298 seats. After receiving a 'shocked' result at the 2007 presidential election, the delegates of its party decided to elect a new leader, with adopting a 'Papal conclave'-style system. On January 11, with more than a half delegates' vote, Son Hak-Gyu was elected to lead at the 2008 parliamentary election.
Principles of policies
This party's platform emphasized these 4 key ideologies.- Democracy
- Peace
- Environmentalism
Presidential election primary
Timeline
These list of key events has been managed by its public primary election committee.- August 21 and August 22, 2007 - Official announcement has been made by its committee. Registration process has been done.
- August 25, 2007 - The full list of official candidate for the primary has been announced. 'Cut-off' process begins.
- August 27, 2007 - 'The policy debate' for its candidates has been done.
- September 5, 2007 - The result of cut-off election will be announced.
- September 5 to September 14, 2007 - Nationwide 'Policy debate' will be held in several cities.
- September 15 to October 14, 2007 - The primary election will be held in 8 multi-regional areas.
- October 14, 2007 - Chung Dong-young was elected as the official presidential candidate of the party.
Rules
- Cut-off process
- * The official result of cut-off process has been combining a result from public poll, and a poll result from its 10,000 randomly selected delegates. 'Public poll' has been conducted from all eligible voters.
- * Top-5 candidates who earn more votes will join to its official primary
- Primary election
- * 1. Regional Rounds from 8 multi-provincial divisions
- * 2. The total number of 'Mobile vote' cast
- * 3. Public opinion polls which conducted from October 8 to 14
Candidates
As of August 25, 2007, 9 politicians has been set up to their presidential bid. Before starting their official primary to the South Korean public, they have to access the 'cut-off' process to reduce from 9 to 5. Later, the number of candidates reduced to 3 after ex-Health and Welfare Minister Rhyu Si-min and former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook quit the race.Here's a list of official candidates of the UNDP primary that announced on September 5, 2007, 05:30GMT.
| Name | Occupation | Key Policies | Notes |
| Son Hak-Gyu | Former governor of Gyeonggi-do | Advanced economy, Integral society, Peace of Korean Peninsula | led a conservative-liberal group from Hannara party |
| Chung Dong-young | Former Minister of Unification | Continental and peaceful economy, '40 million middle-class' plan, Air-7 project | Former chairperson of Uri Party |
| Lee Hae Chan | Member for Gwanak-gu-eul | Stable peace-footing of Korean Peninsula, Employment&Education21, Social integration, Matured democracy | Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea |
Results
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Date!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Voters
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|turnout
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" width="15%" align=center|Son Hak-gyu
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" width="15%" align=center|Chung Dong-young
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" width="15%" align=center|Lee Hae-chan
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=center|Total
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|Total
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|1,969,156
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=left|25.18%
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=center|168,799
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=center|216,984
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=center|110,128
!style="background-color:#E9E9E9" align=center|495,911
Re-merge with Democratic Party
On February,2007, Kim-Han-Kil, who was the flood leader of Uri party, decided to defect Uri party with 23 councilors. And, they formed the new party. And some councilors of Uri party, supporters of Kim-Han-Kil, and supporters of Son-Hak-Gyu merged, and then they formed the United New Democracy Party.On February 17, 2008, the UNDP merged with the Democratic Party, forming the United Democratic Party. This was four years after the Uri Party 's split from the Millennium Democratic Party.