Opposition wooing ex-software guru as mayoral candidate

The main opposition Democratic Party was pleasantly surprised Monday to see the outcome of opinion polls on the by-election for Seoul mayor slated for Oct. 26, which showed overwhelming support for former software guru Ahn Chul-soo.

The party is busy thinking of ways to recruit him to the pool of candidates among opposition parties, focusing on what Ahn, now dean of the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at Seoul National University, said: “Not to the (ruling) Grand National Party.”

“The by-election for Seoul mayor is the starting point and test bed of the integration of opposition parties. Those against the Grand National Party should jump on the same boat,” Democratic Party leader Sohn Hak-kyu told a supreme council meeting in asking Ahn to join.

Sohn implied that Ahn as well as Park Won-soon, a lawyer and the executive director of the Hope Institute, should join the race to run for mayor as the unified opposition candidate.

Democratic Party Secretary-General Jeong Jang-seon also said, “Since Ahn made it clear that he won`t go to the Grand National Party, we should think about banding together with him.”

Others in the party said their leadership must take the initiative once issues related to Ahn and Park are handled.

Moon Jae-in, chairman of the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, asked Ahn to join the discussion on selecting a unified opposition candidate. Moon attended a roundtable meeting with representatives from four opposition parties, and told reporters, “If Ahn goes his own way, the ruling party`s candidate might end up benefiting from his decision.”

In other words, if Ahn runs on behalf of a new party or independently, the opposition will suffer.

Moon said, “Park Won-soon, former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook and Ahn are all great people, and I believe they`ll compete with good will.”

The four opposition representatives at the roundtable meeting confirmed that they will jointly respond to the mayoral by-election. The Democratic Party said that if it selects its candidate first and then the unified candidate, it will select one Sept. 28, but if it chooses only one candidate for opposition parties, it will choose one on Oct. 1.

Many in the main opposition party, however, are pessimistic in that few members can compete against Ahn either way.

jin0619@donga.com