DPK not to punish those who leaked voting results

The Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has decided not to punish its members who leaked the voting results of its primary on social media, saying spreading the data was unintentional and had no systematic involvement by any primary contender’s camp.

The party’s fact-finding committee said Sunday that the six heads of the party’s regional offices shared the results of first-round primary voting from some polling stations in their regions on a Kakao Talk chat room among themselves.

But it said they did not distribute the results to others, adding it is investigating who put the results into a spreadsheet and spread them to people outside the party.

“Our view is they had no intention of leaking the results,” Rep. Yang Seung-jo, head of the committee, said during a press conference. “It might be a politically reckless act, but is not one that needs disciplinary action based on the party’s regulations.”

The committee’s decision, however, is expected to spark a backlash from the contenders who demanded a thorough investigation of the leak.

As the leaked data showed Wednesday that former party leader Moon Jae-in led the other contenders by a wide margin, aides of South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung and Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung raised suspicions over the possible involvement of Moon’s camp in the leak.

The suspicions came especially because two of the six people are from Moon’s camp.

But Yang dismissed the suspicions, saying the other four have no connection to any camp and belonging to Moon’s camp doesn’t necessarily mean their act was meant to benefit the candidate.

The party’s primary got off to a rocky start Wednesday following the leak soon after the polls closed. The results of voting at 250 polling stations nationwide were supposed to be released later, together with the outcomes of phone surveys and additional ballots.