SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Amidst escalating internal strife within South Korea's beleaguered conservative faction, the presidential candidature of Kim Moon Soo was summarily rescinded, only to be reinstated mere hours later, a palpable manifestation of the party's profound disarray in the run-up to the impending June 3 poll.

The tumultuous volte-face enacted on Saturday, subsequent to the abortive endeavour to supplant Kim with the erstwhile Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, served to accentuate the profound leadership crisis plaguing the People Power Party following the precipitate ouster of former President Yoon Suk Yeol concerning his unilateral imposition of martial law in December, an act conceivably portending the conservatives' electoral ignominy and foreclosing their prospects of securing gubernatorial incumbency for a successive term.

Kim, a steadfast conservative and erstwhile labour minister under Yoon, was designated the PPP's presidential nominee on 3 May, having secured 56.3% of the primary ballot and vanquishing a reformist challenger who had vocally opposed Yoon's implementation of martial law. However, the PPP's hierarchy, predominantly populated by staunch Yoon adherents, had dedicated the preceding week to strenuously exerting pressure upon Kim to relinquish his candidacy and lend his imprimatur to Han, who they were convinced possessed a more formidable prospect of prevailing against the liberal Democratic Party's pre-eminent contender, Lee Jae-myung.

Subsequent to the breakdown in negotiations between Han and Kim concerning a unified candidature, the PPP's emergency committee implemented the extraordinary measure, early Saturday, of annulling its primary, thereby rescinding Kim's nomination and simultaneously enrolling Han as both a party affiliate and its designated presidential nominee; nonetheless, this substitution necessitated ratification via a comprehensive party ballot, executed through an automated telephonic poll, which ultimately repudiated the alteration on Saturday evening.

“While we are unable to divulge the specific numerical outcomes, the proposition to substitute the incumbent candidate was repudiated by a slender majority,” stated party spokesperson and legislator Shin Dong-wook. Kim, who had decried the party's manoeuvre to displace him as an "expeditious political putsch," was promptly reinstated as the designated candidate and intends to formalise his candidacy with electoral bodies on Sunday, as confirmed by the party.

“Now, in a manner of speaking, the natural order of things will reassert itself,” Kim declared in a communiqué.

Kim, septuagenarian figure of South Korean political history, having ascended to prominence as a labour activist during the 1970s and 80s, later underwent a significant ideological volte-face in the 1990s, articulating a renunciation of his revolutionary aspirations following the dissolution of communist regimes; subsequently, he dedicated a cumulative eight years to gubernatorial service in Gyeonggi province and successfully completed three parliamentary mandates within the National Assembly.

Having assumed the interim presidency following Yoon's impeachment by the legislature in December and subsequent formal removal by the Constitutional Court in April, Han demitted his post on May 2nd to mount a presidential campaign, contending that his extensive and distinguished career in public service renders him uniquely qualified to steer the nation through a period of mounting geopolitical flux and commercial vicissitudes, exacerbated by the policies emanating from the Trump administration in the United States.

Han, who had enjoined solidarity following his elevation as the candidate, avowed in a communiqué that he “deferentially accedes to” the collective pronouncement of the party’s constituents.

In the recent opinion polls, Han and Kim have markedly trailed Lee, who, having spearheaded the Democrats’ campaign to unseat Yoon, derided the PPP’s manoeuvres to alter candidacies, wryly remarking to journalists on Thursday, "I have encountered the concept of coerced matrimony, but never that of coerced concord."