Park loyalists losing ground
In the top photo, ruling Saenuri Party candidates running in Daegu for the April 13 general election bow to appeal for support in a park, Wednesday. Kim Young-geun, a People’s Party candidate running in Gangseo A in Seoul, campaigns on a street in the left photo, while Rep. Moon Jae-in, former chairman of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, joins a campaign for the party’s candidate Park Kwang-on, running in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. / Yonhap
By Kim Hyo-jin
Ruling Saenuri Party candidates who are close to President Park Geun-hye are losing the support of voters, according to recent polls.
Even in Daegu, Park’s political stronghold, her loyalists who once led polls are now falling behind independent or opposition candidates.
The ruling party has now changed its campaign strategy by distancing itself from Park, removing her posters from its offices and erasing anything associated with the President from their campaigns, party officials said Wednesday.
The change reflects worsened voter sentiment toward Park’s loyalists following a nasty power struggle over candidate nominations for the elections.
An April 6 poll by the JoongAng Ilbo showed that Rep. Yoo Sung-kull leads over Saenuri Party candidate Chong Jong-sup, a former home affairs minister backed by Park, 39.8 percent to 34.3 percent.
Choo Kyung-ho, a former policy-coordinating minister at the Prime Minister’s Office, had a lead over independent candidate Koo Sung-jae, but now trails Koo, 35.6 percent to 35.2 percent, according to an April 4 poll by local broadcaster MBC.
Saenuri Party candidate Lee In-sun is also trailing Joo Ho-young, an ex-minister under the Lee Myung-bak government, by a double-digit margin, and is showing no signs that he can improve his standing.
The metropolitan area and Gyeongsang provinces, too, are no-win contests for Park’s loyalists.
Lee Jun-seok and Sohn Soo-jo, Saenuri Party candidates who worked on Park’s campaign for the 2012 presidential election, face an uphill climb in beating out Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party in Seoul’s Nowon, and independent candidate Chang Je-won in Busan’s Sasang.
Other notable pro-Park candidates — Ahn Dae-hee, a former Supreme Court justice and Park Jong-hee, a member of the nominations committee — are also faring poorly against opposition candidates.
Amid the soaring unpopularity of pro-Park candidates, the party has changed its Park-leaning campaigning style for the first time in 12 years.
The Saenuri Party had relied heavily on Park’s unwavering supporters and used to highlight her membership of the party since the 2004 general election.
But it is now having to adopt a new approach. Of 47 ruling party candidates running in Seoul, nobody includes Park’s name or her photo on their election leaflets. Of 18 candidates running in Busan, only three have mentioned their connection to Park.
Rep. Choung Byoung-gug, who is running in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, said, “We don’t even say ‘please help the Park Geun-hye government’ while campaigning.” The office of Kim Moon-soo, former Gyeonggi Governor and a candidate for the Saenuri Party, also admitted that it had erased Park’s image from placards.
Public sentiment has turned negative toward candidates using Park’s name, following a series of intra-party factional wrangling, said a Saenuri Party official engaged in an election campaign in Daegu.
“Due to the nominations committee dumping non-Park loyalists and the controversy over whether the party should allow them to rejoin if they are elected, citizens have become more sympathetic toward independent candidates,” he said. “The so-called Park Geun-hye marketing is not working anymore.”
The ongoing difficulty even on its home turf is a reality check for the Saenuri Party, according to a party official.
“We are mulling over how to lure back voters,” said Cho Dong-won, the party’s public relations director. “The party leadership has taken the results of recent polls seriously, and plans to seek a new approach in campaigning.”