Red light blinks for Park’s presidential bid

Park Geun-hye

Rep. Park Geun-hye of the ruling Saenuri Party has been considered an unbeatable presidential candidate with strong results in public opinion polls since 2007.

The general belief, however, is now being put to the test. The daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee is losing ground after ratings of Ahn Cheol-soo, a Seoul National University professor, rebounded in the polls after appearing in a popular TV show earlier this week.

The first 40,000 copies of “Thoughts of Ahn Cheol-soo,” sold out, supporting the “Ahn phenomenon,” despite the doctor-turned-IT mogul not having declared whether or not he will join the presidential election race.

Coupled with Ahn’s drive to step up public relations, some strategists blamed Park herself for her falling rating against Ahn. They said Park’s recent remark on the May 19 military coup led by her late father in 1961, was a mistake.

Ahn Cheol-soo

Earlier, Park said the coup, through which the late President Park took power, was “inevitable,” considering the dismal socio-economic situation five decades ago.

Ahn, 50, is viewed as forward-looking, while Park, 60, is seen as retroactive, some campaign strategists said.

Soaring support for Ahn has alarmed the Park camp. Lee Jung-hyun, a close aide of Rep. Park and a Supreme Council member of the Saenuri Party, tried to downplay the phenomenon.

“It’s quite natural that polls go up and down when a fresh issue surfaces in the presidential race. We still have five months to go before the election. So we will see where the trend will go,” Lee said in a radio program Friday.

Naturally strategists of the Park camp are wary of the rise of Ahn.

The Park camp is set to launch a drive to reform the party to regain public support.

Yoon Hee-woong, a senior fellow of Seoul-based polling agency Korea Society Opinion Institute, says it remains to be seen whether Ahn can maintain his popularity.

“I think it’s fair to say that Ahn’s current ratings in the hypothetical two-way race with Park are, to some degree, exaggerated,” Yoon said.

He said some 20 to 25 percent of voters are Ahn’s fans.

Pollsters say citizens living in Seoul and suburbia, white-collar workers in their 30s and 40s are the key support base of IT mogul Ahn.

A recent KBS poll of 2,000 people found that Park topped the survey with 37 percent of support, followed by Ahn with 24.6 percent. In a hypothetical two-way race, Park and Ahn competed closely within a margin of error.

Other surveys found Ahn ahead of Park in the hypothetical two-way race.

Yoon said it is certain that his soaring ratings posed a threat to Rep. Park who has long been leading in the public opinion surveys. “But we’ll have to wait and see whether or not his current high level of support will last until the December presidential race,” he said. <The Korea Times/Kang Hyun-kyung>

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