Tag: Ahn Cheol-soo

Koreans will be waking up with Moon Jae-in as their new President:

Moon was estimated to have garnered 41.4 percent of all votes, according to the exit poll conducted by three major local broadcasters — MBC, KBS and SBS.

The front-runner was followed by Hong Joon-pyo of the conservative Liberty Korea Party with 23.3 percent.

The outcome of the exit poll was announced as the one-day voting came to an end at 8 p.m.

Apparently seeing no possibility of the actual outcome of the vote being any different from the exit poll, Moon said his election, if confirmed, would mark the people’s and the party’s victory.  [Yonhap]

What surprised me about this election was how far the software mogul and populist candidate Ahn Cheol-soo dropped by getting 21% of the vote when at one point in the campaign it appeared he was challenging Moon Jae-in’s polling numbers.  Something else surprising is how well the conservative candidate Hong Joon-pyo did considering the drag that the scandal plagued former President Park Geun-hye created for conservative candidates.

I think what this means that instead of conservative voters rallying around Ahn Cheol-soo to deny Moon an election victory, they instead voted for Hong.  Hong and Ahn’s numbers together would have been enough to defeat Moon.

Here is what Moon Jae-in had to say about his election victory:

Seemingly moved by the overwhelming support, he threw his hands up to the sky and gave his symbolic thumbs-up gesture, prompting thunderous applause from party members and supporters there.

“This crushing victory was expected and is a victory of longing,” Moon told jubilant party members. “‘I will achieve reform and national unity, the two missions that our people long for.”

He went on: “The results will come in hours, but I truly believe that today is the day that opens the gateway to a new Korea. I will embody the public’s passion. Your sweat and tears will never be forgotten within me.”  [Korea Times]

I am not sure what the new Korea is going to look like, but everyone will find out over the course of the next five years of Moon Jae-in’s presidency.

It looks like the Moon Jae-in campaign is resorting to the fake news strategy to take out another rival like they did Ban Ki-moon:

The People’s Party made public key private information on Tuesday surrounding the daughter of its presidential candidate, Ahn Cheol-soo, in an attempt to put an end to snowballing speculation surrounding her lifestyle.

Rep. Son Kum-ju, senior spokesman of the party, held a press conference and disclosed the personal assets of Ahn Surl-hee, the presidential candidate’s 28-year-old daughter. “As of April 2017, she owns about 112 million won [$97,689] worth of cash deposits and insurance policies,” he said. “She also owns a car worth about $20,000 at the current market value.”

Son said her assets came from her parents and grandparents over a long period of time. She also saved some of her annual income, worth up to 40 million won, he added.

Ahn’s daughter is currently attending a doctoral program at Stanford University. She is working as a teaching assistant.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but the Moon campaign is trying to claim that Ahn’s daughter is a tax evader.

According to the article Ahn Cheol-soo is attracting conservative voters who have no other viable candidate to vote for in the upcoming ROK presidential election:

Presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party has knocked frontrunner Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) off the top spot in several poll results released Sunday, a month before the May 9 election.

Moon, who had been leading the polls for months, slipped back to 32.7 percent as Ahn gained 36.8 percent in a poll conducted by Korea Research Center.

In the hypothetical two-way competition, Ahn beat Moon by over 10 percentage points, with 49.4 percent to Moon’s 36.2 percent.

Ahn was also neck and neck with Moon in other polls.

Another poll conducted by Hankook Research on the commission of Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times, showed Moon gained 37.7 percent, and Ahn was on his heels, having 37 percent.  [Korea Times]

You can read much more at the link, but to woo conservative voters Ahn has supported the THAAD deployment and maintaining tough sanctions on North Korea:

The more centrist Ahn Cheol-soo this week won the People’s Party nomination. He is currently second in the Realmeter poll at 34 percent, but he has been slowly closing the gap in recent weeks with Moon. The South Korean software mogul pulled out of the 2012 presidential election to support Moon, but this time he vows to stay in and expects to win.

On national security Ahn takes a somewhat tougher stance than Moon, supporting THAAD and international sanctions imposed on North Korea for breaching United Nations Security Council resolutions banning its nuclear program. But Ahn says he too would press for inter-Korean talks at some point.

“What is the purpose of putting in sanctions against North Korea? Because we would like to persuade them to come to the negotiating table at the time we want and under the conditions that we want,” said Ahn.  [VOA News]

I guess the real question is if the conservative voters in a close election will be as motivated to turn out and vote for Ahn as Moon Jae-in’s voters will for him?

Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, a former head of the minor opposition People’s Party, speaks during a debate on the deployment of a sophisticated U.S. missile defense system in South Korea at the National Assembly Building in Seoul on July 14, 2016. Ahn, a potential candidate for the next presidential election, again voiced his opposition to the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here. (Yonhap)

It is now official that President Park Geun-hye’s Saenuri Party has lost their majority in the Korean parliament after recent elections:

“We will make sure to get rid of our arrogance and self-righteousness by gravely reflecting upon the warning issued by the people through this election,” read a group text message a defeated Saenuri Party candidate sent to his constituents on Thursday.

Such humble words were echoed by a number of his colleagues, as the ruling party was reeling from the crushing defeat that stripped it of the status of majority and No.1 parliamentary party.

Indeed, protracting economic doldrums, the party’s factional fighting, and the Park Geun-hye government’s inflexibility and lack of interaction with the legislature, ordinary citizens and other members of society are blamed for the party’s landslide loss in Wednesday’s general election, observers said.  [Korea Herald]

The big winner in the parliamentary election was former presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo:

Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chair of the minority People’s Party, was seen as the biggest winner in the elections. His party won 38 seats, far more than the 20-seat requirement to form a parliamentary negotiating bloc.

The party pledged to become a “genuine representative” to realize people’s aspirations for a change in politics.

“We will pay back with the kind of politics that changes politics, the government and the lives of the people,” he said during a meeting with his party officials.  [Yonhap]

Ahn’s parliamentary electoral success may end up being a good jumping board for him to launch another presidential election campaign, especially if the economy continues to be flat in Korea.  Ahn could use his businessman background much like Donald Trump does in the US to burnish his credentials to be the next President.

From a US perspective what I think people should look at is whether the election results will cause any softening in President Park’s current hardline policy on North Korea and the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to Korea.

Independent lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo speaks after being elected to jointly lead the People’s Party, a breakaway group from the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, with his ally Chun Jung-bae at a convention to mark the launch of the new party in the central city of Daejeon on Feb. 2, 2016. (Yonhap)