Ruling Saenuri Party guards against premature optimism
The ruling Saenuri Party on Friday warned against premature optimism and overconfidence as polls showed its candidate maintaining a slight lead with 19 days to go before the presidential election.
The alarm was raised because some officials started expressing confidence that the 3-5 percentage point lead can be maintained as long as the party and its presidential standard bearer Park Geun-hye do not make any serious mistakes.
"Even if the rival candidate catches up, we should be able to win in the end, although the margin may be very small," a senior campaign official, who declined to be identified, said.
Others were more boisterous, hinting that Park may defeat main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) candidate Moon Jae-in by as much as 2 million votes at the present pace.
To keep such sentiment from getting out of hand and re-energize campaigners, election camp leaders stressed that the race was far from over and that extra care must be taken not to ruin the outcome.
"It is imperative that party officials act modestly and shun all pretensions," said Kim Moo-sung, the head of Saenuri's election strategy office. He said all Saenuri officials must remain focused so they do not make mistakes.
This view was echoed by party secretary general Suh Byung-soo, who pointed out that the failure by the liberal camp to pull off a harmonious single candidacy agreement has helped, yet the lead for the most part is within the margin of error of surveys, and not significant enough to let their guard down.
The abrupt decision by independent contender Ahn Cheol-soo to drop out of the race last Friday after he clashed with Moon has limited the amount of voters supporting Moon. There has been a sharp rise in undecided votes after the breakup of the unified liberal candidacy talks.
Pollsters said 15-20 percent of Koreans eligible to vote haven't declared their support for anyone in this year's race.
Others were more blunt and said that the lead is just big enough for Saenuri supporters to become complacent, while not wide enough to discourage opponents.
"If we keep saying Park will win, this can cause a backlash and cause people who may not vote at all to cast their ballots for our rival," an election strategist said. He said the best strategy is to tell Saenuri supporters that they must give their full support for Park to win.
The conservative party, meanwhile, said that it is doubling its effort to recruit new supporters from all walks of life and acknowledge mistakes made by the incumbent Lee Myung-bak administration.
Reflecting this, Park said in a rally in Busan, 453 kilometers southeast of Seoul, that Lee has failed to meet the needs of the people. She also said that such failure is on par with the mistakes committed by the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration.
The remark aims not only to admit that the 60-year-old candidate is responsible in some part for present problems facing the country, but also emphasize that her main rival cannot be trusted to govern the country either. The DUP candidate was chief of staff under the late president and was one of the most influential officials in the previous liberal administration.
Roh is an icon for progressives, yet he is not universally liked because he was unable to handle economic challenges. (Yonhap)