King or kingmaker?

Tug-of-war has begun over unified candidacy

On Monday, 102 celebrities called for the two major opposition presidential nominees to agree on a single candidate. Similar demands will follow until the liberal Moon Jae-in and centrist Ahn Cheol-soo give their consent. From the standpoint of opposition supporters, however, it should not be a matter of whether but of when and how.

At a time when their common rival Park Geun-hye has long secured solid support from conservative voters and is targeting as many swing voters as possible, any split within the liberal opposition will inevitably lead to a loss. There is no guarantee even their unified candidacy will make a dent in what commentators call Park’s “cement-like support base” of a conservative 40 percent of voters.

Divided, the final vote count will be in the proportion of 4-3-3 at best. So the opposition camp’s foremost strategy should turn it into a 4-6 ratio if it is to succeed in making power change hands.

This means the two oppositionists should not just unify to a single candidacy but also do it in the most effective way. And this should lead to the most important question ― who will be the king and who will be the kingmaker, provided the ticket succeeds?

For now, opinion polls indicate Ahn would be slightly more “competitive” than Moon of the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP), in a simulated one-on-one race against Park. But the biggest problem for antivirus software mogul-turned-college dean Ahn and most of his aides is that they have no experience running even a small administrative body. So this is where Moon, former chief of staff to late former President Roh Moo-hyun, enjoys an absolute advantage.

Another serious problem will occur once a single candidacy is decided on. If Ahn emerges as the unified runner, most of Moon’s supporters, whose foremost aspiration is to take away power from conservatives, will vote for Ahn in the main round. If Moon wins, however, a considerable number of Ahn’s supporters, including conservatives, whose main concern was to see an entirely new leadership not affiliated with any existing party, will vote not by partisan but by ideological lines and rather pick Park. Ahn has also emphasized his ultimate goal is not the power itself but political reform.

We think the solution can be simple, then.

Many are uncertain how Ahn will administer the nation even if he is the eventual winner, and the two opposition candidates have common platforms in most areas only differing on detailed action plans.

So the best way is for Ahn to make Moon accept the key parts of his election pledges, including political reform plans, and check whether the latter would carry them out as faithfully as he can. To do that, Ahn’s best position in a joint government would be the leader of the DUP instead of prime minister under Moon’s presidency, as some suggest now. In that way, the executive and legislative branches will show their checks and balances function better, too. Moreover, there has been only one case of the president and prime minister hailing from the same region, but that was half a century ago.

What’s certain is one of the two should compromise and bide his time to avoid being remembered in history as an obstacle of political progress. <The Korea Times>