You’re absolutely right, we should have been clearer in our initial post! Let us rephrase thoughts:
We (as a validator) will cast an abstain vote, but we will all vote individually of course. Our policy regarding our delegators is that anytime we abstain from a vote, either because it is politically divisive or in this case, because there might be conflict of interest, then we inform our community via our regular channels and invite them to cast independent vote themselves.
This is the commitment we have defined regarding our delegators and we will obide by that rule. To conclude, our delegators will be informed and will vote themselves as this election proposal constitute a potential conflict of interest for the validator itself. We would feel uncomfortable picking a candidate on their behalf when we were part of the competition in the first place. Sorry for the potential misunderstanding, we hope things are clearer now!