I'm one of the candidate's supporter who received merit from him from my post in his application thread but I didn't expect that he will Merit it. If it really is a conflict of interest then it would be a problem right?
By giving people an incentive to vouch for him, it's possible users vouch for him just to earn Merit. I don't know if this has happened or will happen in the future, but it's a conflict of interest I wouldn't want to risk.