Campaign staff reflect candidates’ style

By Jun Ji-hye

The ruling Saenuri Party’s presidential candidate Park Geun-hye has offered positions in her campaign to people who had worked for her before, as she rarely trusts those who have not been tested.

The Democratic United Party’s Moon Jae-in has invited competitors from within to his team as he strives to fix his weakness: the Roh Moo-hyun “shadow effect.”

Professionals and experts who are second to none in their areas of specialization tend to get phone calls from independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo. Expertise is the single criteria that the software millionaire-turned-politician counts when he selects his people.

The unique line-up of the presidential election camps draws attention because they are mirrors of each candidate’s vision and philosophy for the upcoming presidential election.

Park: loyalty

Campaign strategists of the Park camp have one thing in common: They have worked for her before.

Some are from Park’s “Study Group” that was composed of five key experts who advised her on major policy areas during the 2007 primary of the then Grand National Party (now Saenuri Party).

They include economist-turned-politician Kim Jong-in, who is now a chief strategist of Park’s camp in charge of economic and social campaign pledges. Rep. Lee Ju-young, who has been tapped to head the campaign planning committee, worked for Park’s primary election camp in August. Kim co-chaired the primary election campaign support group and Lee was chief of a special advisors’ team.

Park has focused on loyalty and reliability based on shared work experience in selection of her members.

Her latest selection, revealed Wednesday, showed a shift from her long-standing principle in choosing her aides. The daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee invited a group of people who previously turned their back on her.

Her appointment of Kim Moo-sung, a former lawmaker, has drawn media attention as Kim became “a traitor” in 2009 by supporting the Lee Myung-bak administration’s attempt to reverse the relocation of government agencies to the newly created Sejong City.

Moon: diversity

Moon Jae-in, the former presidential chief of staff to the late President Roh Moo-hyun, is striving to create an election camp which embraces anti-Roh members. His image with Roh has been regarded as his Achilles heel as it became the main target among his primary rivals to attack him.

Recently the DUP presidential candidate named Chung Dong-young, the Party’s senior advisor and former unification minister, to head a committee for inter-Korean economic policies. Chung is one of the symbolic figures of the anti-Roh faction.

Most recently, Moon recruited former Environment Minister Yoon Yeo-joon as a co-chair of his camp’s national unity committee Wednesday as part of efforts to expand the liberal candidate's support base to encompass moderate conservatives. Yoon served under former President Kim Young-sam and worked for the conservative Grand National Party.

Ahn: merit-based

The theme of the Ahn camp is openness. It is open to anybody if the person is an unrivaled expert in his or her area of specialization. The software mogul whose slogan is “innovation” formed his camp as simple as possible by creating around 10 different teams and attracting members from all walks of life.

Some of Ahn’s people were supporters of Kim Geun-tae who was a late pro-democracy activist and a key political forefather of the DUP. Some were the part of Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon’s by-election camp. Also, there are people from civic groups, media organizations and universities.

Park Sun-sook, who defected from the DUP and became a chief campaign strategist of the Ahn camp on Sep. 20, had ties with Kim Geun-tae.

Korea University professor Jang Ha-sung joined Ahn’s camp Thursday. He has led the moves to protect retail investors’ rights against the conglomerates and will take charge of setting up economic policies.

However, Ahn’s camp is still not concretely formed. Yoo said in an appearance on MBC radio: “A lot of people are now contacting us, saying they want to work with us. It has become important to find a way to cooperate with these people.”