Two choose negotiators
Park Young-sun
By Yi Whan-woo
Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) and independent Ahn Cheol-soo named three of their respective aides as members of a consultative body Monday to discuss methods of selecting a single liberal presidential candidate.
DUP lawmakers Park Young-sun, Yoon Ho-jung, and Kim Ki-sik will represent Moon’s election camp while Cho Kwang-hee, Geum Tae-seop, and Lee Tae-kyu who serves as chief of staff, legal advisor, and strategy planner respectively are from Ahn’s side.
The move came after the two candidates agreed last Tuesday to form a unified candidacy to defeat Rep. Park Geun-hye, the contender from the conservative ruling Saenuri Party.
Both Moon and Ahn share the goal of taking back power from the conservatives. The selection of a single candidate has been considered the key to achieving this, as a number of surveys show that the two liberals will lose to Park if they run separately.
The six representatives from the consultative body will explore ways of establishing the single candidacy by Nov. 26. _ the registration deadline by which time Moon and Ahn have agreed to pick a single contender.
Rep. Park Young-sun, 52, of the DUP is one of the co-heads of Moon’s election camp. The three-term lawmaker represented her party to form a single candidacy with then-independent Park Won-soon during last year’s Seoul mayoral by-election. Park claimed victory over Na Kyung-won, then-mayoral candidate of the Saenuri Party.
The DUP lawmaker is also close to Park Sun-sook, previously a fellow representative who now spearheads Ahn’s election campaign team.
“We anticipate that our representatives will come up with a satisfying outcome because they have expertise in negotiations,” said Rep. Woo Sang-ho, Moon’s spokesman.
For Ahn’s side, Cho will lead his two fellow representatives at the consultative body. Cho, 45, and Geum are lawyers and served as legal advisors for Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon in his election bid last year.
Lee Tae-kyu, 48, served as a campaign strategist for then-presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak in the 2007 election.
Despite a step toward a single candidacy, questions remain as to whether the consultative body will be able to reach an agreement as both sides claim their man should be selected.
Woo cited the increase in opinion poll ratings for Moon since he came to an agreement with Ahn on the selection of a single liberal contender.
“Such ratings indicate that people believe Moon is the right man for the presidency over Ahn,” said Woo.
Song Ho-chang, a co-chief of Ahn’s campaign team, showed a contrasting view. He stressed the fact that Ahn leads Rep. Park Geun-hye by a margin of over 5 percentage points in terms of popularity in polls based on him hypothetically running as a single liberal candidate. Moon leads the Sanuri Party contender by a margin of slightly above 1 percent in another poll in which he is the liberal candidate.
“It’s important to select the one who can definitely defeat Rep. Park and there’s no doubt that Ahn can achieve that goal.” Song said.