Opinion poll deals Ahn body blow

Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, co-chairman of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD), lost one of his biggest strategic goals, Thursday, but it remains to be seen whether he will gain two others from the shifting sands of politics.

The NPAD decided to retain the existing practice of the party nominating candidates to stand in lower-level municipal and provincial mayoral and council elections.

The decision follows the result of an opinion poll of party members and the public conducted the previous day.

“I have accepted the outcome of an opinion poll as the will of party members for winning elections and checking the ruling Saenuri Party from wanton behavior,” Ahn said in a news conference.

The final result consisting of party members reflecting 50 percent of the vote with the other half from the public poll showed that 53.44 percent of respondents said the main opposition party should nominate candidates, while 46.56 percent were opposed.

The abolition of the system was Ahn’s signature initiative aimed at changing politics.

His declaration is seen as a sign that he is reconciled with realpolitik.

But his political coming-of-age is at the cost of his biggest asset — his image as an agent of change.

Ahn was a former business entrepreneur, who took the political arena by storm in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election.

At Ahn’s side during the news conference was the party’s co-chairman Kim Han-gil, who engineered a coalition for the now-defunct Democratic Party (DP), which he was leading but without enough of a support base.

Now he has reversed his position on this issue, Ahn can no longer use it to attack the governing camp.

President Park Geun-hye had pledged to abolish party nominations during her 2012 presidential campaign but the Saenuri Party decided to maintain the system.

Ahn is also left with the tough job of quelling a dispute among party members who want to be nominated with less than two months to go before the local polls.

This comes from the fact that the merger was disproportionate.

The DP had 126 seats in the National Assembly, while Ahn’s faction had two, himself included.

Five-term lawmaker Chung Sye-kyun tried to remove possible conflict, saying, “As the result has been announced, we have got to unite and move forward for a victory in the local polls. Questioning Ahn’s leadership is an absurd argument at this stage.”

The Saenuri Party was jubilant over Ahn’s decision, saying he had given up on his vision for new politics.

However, Kim Hyo-seuk, a Supreme Council member of the NPAD, shot back: “Ahn is just experiencing adjusting to real politics.” By Jun Ji-hye The korea times