Following the 11th Seoul Mayor, 12 Presidential Election, and 21 Seoul Mayor
Withdrawal from the 2022 presidential election
Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the People’s Party. / Photo = Yonhap News
Ahn Cheol-soo, the leader of the People’s Party, resigned from his post as a presidential candidate. Ahn is being evaluated as having a wider support spectrum compared to candidates from both parties, so various observations are raised over this departure.
This is the fourth time that Ahn, who has appeared in the political arena with the ‘New Politics’ craze, has left midway. Representative Ahn ran for the Seoul mayor by-election in 2011 and gained 50% of the approval rating, but conceded his candidacy to independent candidate Park Won-soon, who at the time had a sideways approval rating of 5-10%. In the process, it was evaluated as ‘beautiful unification’.
Afterwards, Ahn ran as an independent candidate in the 2012 presidential election, but even this time, he started negotiations for unification with Moon Jae-in, the candidate of the Democratic United Party, to oppose Saenuri Party candidate Park Geun-hye. Ahn, who failed to reconcile differences, announced his resignation, saying, “Candidate Moon and I could not narrow our views.”
The third is the by-election for the mayor of Seoul in April last year. At the time, Ahn agreed with People’s Strength candidate Oh Se-hoon to unify the candidates through an opinion poll. As a result, Oh was finally elected as the opposition candidate.
So, on March 3, 2022, CEO Ahn, who said, “I must finish the race,” eventually withdrew for the fourth time from this election.
Representative Ahn said on the same day, “Ahn Cheol-soo and Yoon Seok-yeol decided to come together today for a better government change, which is the beginning of making a better Korea. We will prepare for an era of great transformation for transformation and innovation.”
“We will make sure that we achieve a regime change by filling in each other’s shortcomings, and we will create a successful government through a complementary and competent and prepared administration.”
On the morning of the 3rd, presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party held a joint press conference on unification and unity with Yoon Seok-yeol, the presidential candidate for the Power of the People, at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul. / Photo = Yonhap News
While attention is being paid to whether Ahn’s decision will be a crisis or an opportunity for his political career, the political circles are giving mixed evaluations.
Opposition parties are applauding Representative Ahn, who agreed to ‘unconditional unification’ for the cause of regime change.
People’s Power presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol visited Busan, the hometown of Ahn, and praised Ahn, saying, “Candidate Ahn resigned due to unification, but this was not a ‘withdrawal’, but ‘advancing’ to make the country a better country through regime change.” .
On the other hand, the passports poured ridicule mixed criticism to the effect of ‘withdrawal again’. There is also speculation that Ahn may have reached a ‘backside agreement’ to establish his own political position in the future. It is a voice saying that he may not have been promised the post of Prime Minister.
In an interview with TBS radio, Rep. Woo Sang-ho, who is the general election head of the Democratic Party’s Election Response Committee, said, “If you look at the stories that come out of candidate Ahn’s mouth, he says, ‘I wanted to be in administration,’ so I think I was offered the prime ministership.” After the declaration of unification, Ahn met with reporters and said, “As a member of the National Assembly, I worked hard for legislation, but I couldn’t do administrative work.”
The reaction of Ahn’s supporters was also divided into two precisely. While some expressed their intention to withdraw their support, saying, “Can we unite even after being ridiculed by CEO Lee Jun-seok like that?”, there were also many supporters who said, “I understand that it must be a decision made unavoidably for the cause of regime change.”
Representative Ahn is clearing out the positions he has passed before starting a full-fledged shooting to support Candidate Yoon, such as campaigning at the site. After sending a text message to the party members after the declaration of unification, he apologized in a handwritten letter, saying, “I sincerely apologize to the precious people who would have hoped for my completion, and to those who supported and loved me.”
He added, “I thought that it was necessary to prevent a situation in which regime change could not be achieved without unification.”
Hong Min-seong, reporter at Hankyung.com mshong@hankyung.com
