Ahn Cheol-soo virus

By Oh Young-jin

Assistant managing editor

A columnist should write a column that has a shelf life of at least two days, senior writers would tell me during my salad days at The Korea Times.

I rarely failed to heed this advice, usually writing about issues whose outcome was pretty much determined.

But when I didn’t adhere to this advice, as was the case with this column, I was caught off guard and am forced to rewrite my column for the second edition. Not that I have any regret except for a bit of self-reproach and three pairs of raised eyebrows from the editorial board. I knew the risk involved.

First, the reason for my lack of regrets is that I let my wishful thinking take over for the first column. Its title was “Ahn Cheol-soo ― virus or vaccine?” but I strongly hoped that he would prove to be a vaccine to prevent the spread of inertia and defeatism in our political system.

As the new title indicates, I have made my mind up to determine that the founder of Ahnlab, which makes defenses against computer viruses, is not the cure but part of the disease. But bear in mind that I don’t entirely give up on Ahn and am hoping against hope that he has some grand plan that he can’t reveal right now. Perhaps he will later reassume his role of political superman.

By then, this column will have outlived its shelf life, enabling me to be righteous once again. But even as I am trying to prepare myself for a variety of eventualities, I find myself in a state of shock, wondering why Ahn has relinquished his chance at becoming a political superman to Park Won-soon, a civic leader. The two met for two hours Tuesday afternoon before Ahn spoke to the media about his decision not to pursue a bid to become Seoul mayor.

“I know of great expectations people have for me,” Ahn said, concluding that Park would be the better choice between the two for the post of Seoul mayor. Ahn embraced Park for photographers.

Even two hours after Ahn’s press conference, I am trying to make sense out of Ahn’s remarks not because of incomprehension but due to a missed opportunity.

The 49-year-old dean of the Seoul National University Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology could have done a lot for our country.

By standing in the Seoul mayoral election, he could have rekindled people’s interest in politics, once again making an election into a choice of the best candidate rather than of the least evil candidate.

This enhanced public interest in politics would provide the momentum for the political community to shake up its old paradigm, if not overhaul the entire system. This will in turn enable the nation to unify and diversify ― unifying its cacophony of dissenting interest groups at times of crises and tolerating expressions of diverse social forces in other times.

We know how the nation was ideologically divided in how to respond to the fatal provocations by North Korea ― the sinking of a frigate in our waters and bombardment of one of our islands. The existing conservative and progressive parties only aggravated this ideological tug-of-war.

Ahn stood for a “new third way” that would likely be unprecedented in the history of votes in big democracies. We wished that Ahn’s third way would be independent of the conventional ways we have been engaging in politics and offer new challenges and opportunities for us to start from scratch.

Perhaps, Ahn knew of historically long odds he faced as a third-party candidate.

In 1992, Texan billionaire Ross Perot swept onto the ballot riding on the public antipathy toward the establishment. Although he didn’t win any electoral college votes, he received widespread voter support that some claim tipped the balance away from George H.W. Bush of the Republican Party to Bill Clinton of the Democratic Party in the presidential election. More recently, Tea Partiers, a U.S. political movement at the grassroots level, rose up in the lead up to the U.S. mid-term elections last November, now threatening to take over the main narrative of the Republican Party and pushing it further to the fringe of the right.

We also had Chung Ju-yung, a billionaire business tycoon, who may have set an example for an independent presidential bid for Perot. Chung, founder of the Hyundai business empire, contested Kim Young-sam in the 1992 presidential election but was defeated.

Perhaps, Ahn passed the baton to Park, sensing that it was difficult for him to win the race in the political arena that has been made for two big established parties.

Ahn’s emergence as a hot political stock is by no means an accident. It was the call of the zeitgeist of our times. Ahn rejected it.

He may argue that he can do more by coaching from the sidelines. Already, he is taken as the fourth estate in his own right, telling as he sees what is wrong with our society. His words of wisdom have benefitted us.

He may claim that he wanted to save his family from the relentless spotlight they would be subject to, if he decided to seek political office. We know of many political aspirants whose dirty laundry was exposed and live in disgrace.

In other words, I agree that it all comes down to an individual’s choice. Ahn has made his and deserves our respect for it. But the benefits we think we could have received from his political bid look even bigger now that he is gone.

Now I think I can hear sighs of relief from the political establishment that has every reason to believe that it has returned to business as usual.

That saddens me. I know I can’t blame Ahn but I can’t help it for now.