Smile of Saenuri, “Public Opinion Favorable to Park Geun-hye”

Smile of Saenuri, “Public Opinion Favorable to Park Geun-hye”

Park Geun-hye’s strategy of presidential election is

The Saenuri Party, while reassured over “favorable public opinion,”

expects that the election race will be narrow by about 1% difference

It approaches floating voters with over-all differentiation of policies

The strategy to solidify conservative voters of Party Park Geun-hye, presidential candidate of the Saenuri Party, has become more prominent than ever. Immediately after registering as presidential candidate on 25^th, candidate Park resigned from the non-constituency member of the National Assembly. She proclaimed that she would retire from politics if she is defeated in the coming presidential election, saying that “I will close my political journey unless I am trusted by the people in this presidential election.” The reason why she decided to fight with her back to the wall, risking her political career, seems to be derived from her tactics to make all conservatives gather together.

The Saenuri party is in the mood of being relieved over various results of opinion surveys after the single ticket movement of the opposition groups between Moon Jae-in, candidate of the Democratic United Party, and Ahn Cheol-soo, independent candidate ended with Ahn’s unilateral resignation from the candidacy. A key member of the party said, “We expected that, if the single ticket movement, the biggest scoring point to the opposition groups, were to realized, we would be behind the opposition candidate by over 5%. But, since the process of the single ticket being realized was not very beautiful, the effect does not looks very great. The situation is favorable to candidate Park.” To him, the current situation is comparable to the situation in the 2002 presidential election times when the Lee hwe-chang, candidate of the ruling party, who had been ahead of other candidates by 5%, became to fall behind the single opposition candidate by 7% immediately after the two candidate 一 Roh Moo-hyun and Jeong Mong-joon 一 realized the single ticket.    

However, strategists of the Saenuri Party do not loosen their wariness. “Considering the desire of the people to change the government, the situation is still unfavorable to candidate Park,” diagnosed a personage known as a strategist in the party election headquarters. “Opinion surveys performed at the time when the number of independents has increased by the disappointment of resignation of candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, and the antipathy to candidate Moon jae-in among supporters of candidate Ahn is at the highest are not very meaningful. (Over time) the voters favoring opposition parties gather together, and the race will be very close by about 1%,” a core assistant to candidate Park predicted.

The Saenuri Party, seeing that public opinion for about 5 days after candidates register decides the election trend, brands candidate Moon Jae-in as ‘old-style politician’, and devotes itself to maximize conflicts among opposition supporters. “Candidate Moon is the cowardly candidate who has survived alone defeating his competitor through unsportsmanlike conduct,” attacked Park Seon-gyu, the party spokesman. It seems to be the party’s effort to prevent supporters of candidate Ahn from changing into Moon’s supporters.

However, both camps see that, in the Park Geun-hye vs Moon Jae-in confrontation, the final victory or defeat depends on the consolidation of supporters and absorption of swinging voters, take pains over the means to achieve it. The Park camp plans to publicize actively that their policies are superb. “We will make full-scale differentiation between candidate Park and candidate Moon with the contrasts of custom-made welfare vs general welfare; simultaneous promotion of growth and reform vs chaebol reform-style economic democratization; principled policy toward North Korea vs unconditional and soft policy toward North Korea,” said a core assistant to candidate Park.

The party will put more efforts to win floating voters whose number has increased by the resignation of candidate Ahn. A high-ranking official in the Park’s election headquarters said, “The floating voters have increased by over 10% after the resignation of candidate Ahn. It is most urgent for the party to win them over.” Some members in the Saenuri Party are reviewing strategies such as strengthening the political reform message of candidate Park, designating candidate Moon as ‘rebirth of the failed Roh Moo-hyun government’, and stimulating the ‘anti-Roh Moo-hyeon sentiment among the people in the middle. But, a key person in the election headquarters mentioned that, “I don’t know how the party, while inviting an old politician like lee hwe-chang, former representative of the Liberty Forward Party, can embrace twenties and thirties and the people in the middle aspiring political reform.”

The Original Article : http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/politics/politics_general/562245.html

Reference :
An interview of Chul-su Ahn http://liruda.blogspot.kr/2012/02/i-can-accept-failure-everyone-fails-at.html
An article on businessweek http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-06/south-korea-s-ahn-moon-to-merge-presidential-campaigns