Independent candidate Ahn abruptly quits pres. race

Independent presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo on Friday abruptly dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed rival Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party as the single runner for the liberal camp.

Ahn made the announcement in a news conference after he and Moon failed to narrow differences on the rules for merging the opposition`s candidacy.

Moon and Ahn had tried their best to reopen stalled negotiations to unify the opposition candidate by mobilizing “agents with fully delegated authority.”

Both sides thus took drastic action to find a breakthrough in the negotiations.

The talks by their proxies were held after Moon phoned Ahn Friday morning to say, "To conclude the negotiations to unify the candidate as soon as possible, those in charge of representing the two candidates should meet.”

Both sides, however, stopped short of naming the two delegates and when and where they met.

The proxies reportedly held an intense debate again Friday over rules over unifying the candidate, including “a hypothetical two-way race (with ruling Saenuri Party candidate Park Geun-hye) + approval rating” proposed by Ahn’s side, and ”a hypothetical two-way race + eligibility” demanded by Moon’s side, but failed to narrow differences.

A source from Moon’s camp said, “’Hypothetical two-way race + approval rating’ as demanded by Ahn effectively represents ‘(Moon’s) concession of his candidacy’ and this we can never accept,” adding, “Perhaps we could consider ‘one-third with two-way race + one-third with approval rating + one-third with eligibility.`”

A war of nerves between supporters of the two candidates also reached its peak.

Park Sun-sook, chief of Ahn’s election preparatory team, told a news briefing Thursday, “Election irregularities can never be accepted, including mobilizing the party’s organization to urge call recipients to route calls during opinion polls.”

Moon’s supporters blasted this statement on Twitter, with one saying, “How come routing calls to recipients to party members can be illegal? If so, let’s route calls voluntarily on our own.”

Experts say parties can influence the results of opinion polls by mobilizing their organizations to purchase dozens or hundreds of wired phone lines, and route calls to relatives or acquaintances to party members. This occurred in local and general elections.

A candidate who ran in the April 11 general elections in North Jeolla Province said, "Routing calls were rampant and done systematically behind the scenes.”

Others claim that Ahn’s side should not have criticized as being illegal for “party members to persuade their acquaintances to route calls.”

Still others blasted Park for being high-handed in Thursday’s news conference, with one netizen writing, “Today Park Sun-sook lost her temper, Ahn lost the public, and I was dumbfounded.”

As the rules on opinion polls turned into an obstacle to unifying the candidate, experts voiced the need to decide on the candidate solely through direct negotiations” and rule out opinion polls.

Since the "beautiful unification of the candidates" was proven impossible due to disruptions in their bids to unifying the candidates, the lone remaining solution was to “unify the candidate through the people’s hearts” through concession by one side to seek higher goals.

leon@donga.com