Saenuri may recruit ex-Jeolla officials
Park Geun-hye, the Saenuri Party’s presidential candidate, waves in response to cheers during an inaugural ceremony for the party’s presidential election committee for Sejong City at the Sejong Culture and Art Center in South Chungcheong Province, Tuesday. / Korea Times
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Key aides for Rep. Park Geun-hye are trying to recruit former top government officials from the Jeolla region to appeal to voters there.
Park, the presidential candidate of the ruling Saenuri Party, is from Gyeongsang, a regional rival of Jeolla. Support from that region would be a big boost to her bid.
Some reports say that the post of prime minister is being offered.
Reports have it that two to three aides of Park have met several people who served in key government posts under the former Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung governments.
Those who have been short-listed include Goh Kun, former two-time prime minister from 1997 to 1998 and from 2003 to 2004 and also mayor of Seoul, and Jin Nyum, a former finance minister.
These former government officials are from Jeolla Province, the main opposition Democratic United Party’s (DUP) stronghold.
The move is being made in order to seek balance, given an East-West voter divide has often been repeated in elections.
Park’s main support base is voters living in the eastern part of Gyeongsang Province. Polls showed that support for her from voters living in Jeolla Province, the western part of the country, remains at less than 20 percent.
She visited Jeolla Province for two days as her first stop on a nationwide tour, which was rare, considering that she has only conducted single day tours over the last year.
Speaking to voters in Gwangju City, Monday, she called for unity and vowed to achieve it if elected.
On Tuesday, Park headed to another western part of the region, Sejong City and Chungcheong Province.
Her camp reportedly calculated that the candidate would benefit if she chooses an influential figure in the region as her “de facto” running-mate for her campaign.
Under the law, a president-elect can nominate a certain figure for prime minister and appoint him or her for the No. 2 post after the parliamentary hearing.
The appointment of prime minister here is different from the vice president of the United States where the standard bearer of the party nominates his or her choice for vice president as a running-mate and they then together campaign for their election.
The prime minister card has emerged lately as a tactic to turn the tide as her rivals agreed to start negotiations to pick a unified candidate in the opposition camp to prevent a vote split.
Rep. Moon Jae-in of the DUP and independent Ahn Cheol-soo are from South Gyeongsang Province and Busan, respectively. Strategists of the Park camp are concerned about the possible negative fallout of a Moon-Ahn coalition in the election.
The duo could even undermine Park’s support base in the Saenuri Party’s home turf, they said.
Some insiders, however, denied the report, saying they have never heard about it.
Rep. Lee Sang-il, a spokesman of the Park camp, said, “I have never heard about such a plan. Having said that, I am not in a position to confirm whether it is true or not.”