Two presidential candidates of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) said Monday they will merge their campaigns by next week in a bid to boost their party's chances of winning the 2022 presidential election.

Chung Sye-kyun, former prime minister under the Moon Jae-in administration, and three-term lawmaker Lee Kwang-jae announced the decision to unify their presidential candidacies by next Monday, during their visits to the headquarters of the bourse operator in western Seoul.

"With a vision to create another government (affiliated with the DP), we decided, through profound dialogue and consent, to be the first to unify candidacies," they said.

"Under our urgent sense of duty to help launch the fourth DP government ... we committed to contributing to electing a good candidate who has moral dignity, economic knowledge and capacity to command state affairs."

The announcement came as the DP kicked off its three-day process earlier in the day to register preliminary candidacies to run in the party's race to pick the single standard-bearer for the presidential election on March 9. Through rounds of primaries, the DP plans to elect its final presidential candidate by Sept. 10.

The latest decision by Chung and Lee is widely seen as a joint move to counter the predominance of the rival DP candidate, Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung, the absolute front-runner in opinion polls for presidential hopefuls for the ruling liberal bloc. (Yonhap)