Ahn Cheol-soo`s `election marketing`

In Jae-geun, the wife of the late former senior adviser to the now-defunct Democratic Party and candidate of the main opposition Democratic United Party for Seoul’s Dobong district in next month`s parliamentary elections, has released a message from former IT guru and rising political star Ahn Cheol-soo. Song Ho-chang, another main opposition party candidate and close confidante of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, also released a message from Ahn. In’s camp said Ahn allowed them to use the message but that it was part of a conversation when In called Ahn to express her gratitude for his visit to her husband’s funeral home. The message that Song’s camp released was Ahn`s comment on Song, but when and in what context Ahn made the comment remains unclear.

Ahn is known to have rejected the Democratic United Party’s proposal to give him the top proportional representation seat in the parliamentary elections. In a lecture at Seoul National University Tuesday, he stressed complementary cooperation between conservative and progressive forces, saying, “With both sides showing reform efforts, I feel no need to join politics now.” Ahn, however, apparently supports candidates of a specific party in the run-up to the elections. This goes against what he said in the lecture.

The approval rating of Park, who won the Oct. 26 by-election for Seoul mayor last year, went from under 5 percent to 50 percent after Ahn expressed his support. In this sense, In and Song apparently seek to raise their profiles in their constituencies by using Ahn. In opinion polls, the former software guru would win the presidential election if he ran in a two-way race. Since Ahn’s every comment has a big impact on swing voters, candidates want to capitalize on the “Ahn Cheol-soo effect.”

Ahn is being mentioned as a presidential candidate though he has denied that he will run. So he should not publicly support a couple of candidates without joining the election campaign. Whether the candidates he supports will be elected to parliament remains unclear. In his lecture, Ahn said he praises those who can admit they are wrong, and criticized conservative and progressive forces for searching only for evidence that show that their answers are correct while ignoring that they also can be wrong. If Ahn thinks he can also be wrong, he should take a step back, watch the elections, and leave everything in the hands of voters.

Editorial Writer Song Pyeong-in (pisong@donga.com)