Rep. Ahn asks Mayor Park to yield

Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo

By Jun Ji-hye

Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo is pressuring Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) to make concessions in the June 4 local polls to candidates from his envisioned political party.

“I am willing to field candidates for all city councils including Seoul in the local elections. I think this is my turn to receive concessions from the DP,” Ahn told reporters. “The public will then know the state of political ethics here.”

Ahn’s remarks referred to two previous concessions he made to the DP _ to Mayor Park during the 2011 Seoul mayoral by-election, and to Rep. Moon Jae-in during the 2012 presidential poll.

This is the first time that Ahn has called on the largest opposition party to yield to him in fielding a single candidate among the opposition bloc since the first-term lawmaker began to flesh-out a party apparatus.

In response, Mayor Park said that he is willing to bow out, but on condition that this would benefit the public.

“I would make a hundred concessions (to Ahn) if that would be helpful for citizens,” Park told an MBC radio talk show Monday.

Park’s response raised different interpretations among the political circle.

Some speculated that he may give up his re-election bid in order to support a candidate from Ahn’s party, but the DP attempted to remove such speculation, saying Park just meant he will not seek his own political profit.

“Park set a precondition ― ‘if the public wants.’ That means he will not calculate political benefit,” said Rep. Noh Woong Rae, the DP secretary general. “It does not mean that Park has to yield this time as he received a concession a few years ago.”

Noh added that Ahn’s attempt to seek political profit was not in line with his theme of “new politics.”

Political analyst Yoon Hee-woong said that Ahn was making his strongest-ever commitment to actively participate in local elections, but it could not be said that Park was willing to accommodate him.

“Park obviously knows about his public support. By citing the precondition ‘if the public wants,’ Park is attempting to naturally manage Ahn’s request,” said Yoon, head of the public opinion research team at Min Consulting, a public policy consulting firm.

He added, however, that the possibility remains that Ahn and Park could combine forces at the last minute as both of them know that a spilt in opposition voters could lead to a victory for a candidate of the ruling party.

“Ahn is probably aware that it will be hard for him to handle the situation if the opposition camp is defeated in Seoul due to a voter split. He knows this could negatively affect the popularity of his new party among liberal voters,” Yoon said.

For its part, the Saenuri Party also criticized the independent lawmaker, saying “Ahn himself proved that his concessions are the result of political calculations.”

The governing party, which is threatened by the large public support for Mayor Park as well as the growing popularity of Ahn’s putative party, has tried to broaden the gap between the two, who are regarded as like-minded.

“Taking Ahn’s comment into consideration, if Park does not make a concession, he will be an immoral person,” said Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, the Saenuri Party’s vice floor leader.

In the mean time, the software mogul-turned-politician, who has criticized both the governing party and President Park Geun-hye for not fulfilling their election pledge to abolish party selections of candidates running in the local polls the previous day, fired a salvo against the DP.

Commenting on DP lawmaker Kim Jin-pyo’s argument that the Ahn camp has only recruited figures of little influence, he said, “If the DP candidates are beaten by my insignificant people, then it will disgrace itself in public.”