Moon, Ahn face off in TV debate

Democratic United Party presidential candidate Moon Jae-in (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald), Independent presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo (Yonhap News)

Presidential candidates Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo are poised to face off in their debate Wednesday, as they are vying to become the main liberal candidate in the presidential election.

The rivals are expected to renew their commitment to forming an alliance to prevent a continuation of conservative rule by beating the Saenuri Party’s Park Geun-hye in the Dec. 19 election. 

Their face-to-face duel, broadcast live by three TV networks, is expected to help determine the sentiment of liberal voters, with whom the two sides are conducting surveys this week. 

While the Democratic United Party’s Moon and independent Ahn prepared for the debate in the afternoon, their aides struggled to hammer out the details the rules on how to decide which of them would be the main liberal candidate, focusing on the question and timing of the proposed polls.

The two sides were so far apart that Ahn at one moment said he would settle the dispute with Moon in person.

Despite pleasantries shared by the two candidates, the deep mistrust and wrangling between the two campaigns are expected to damage their chances in the election.

With the negotiations dragging on, officials themselves appeared to be admitting the unlikelihood of the merger being “beautiful” as the two sides repeatedly stated.

“I have not seen negotiations dragged out as long as this,” Moon’s chief of communications Rep. Woo Sang-ho said in a radio interview on Wednesday.

“Ahn’s negotiators repeated the same things all day yesterday. It is worrying that (Ahn’s) negotiation team doesn’t appear to have discretionary authority.” 

Similar sentiments were echoed by the co-chair of Ahn’s election committee Song Ho-chang, who said that the “progressive bloc’s supporters are on the verge of being irritated.” 

In addition, concerns are rising that the lengthy negotiations could cause a larger number of Ahn and Moon’s supporters to drop away than initially expected.

While similar coalitions have proved successful in the past, experts have said that the combined supporter base of Ahn and Moon will be less than the sum of its parts.

According to professor Shiin Yul of Myongji University, a significant proportion of Ahn supporters with conservative leanings will drop away if Moon is selected.

According to the deadline set on Nov. 6, when the merger was first announced, the single candidate needs to be selected before the end of candidate registration on Nov. 26.

As such, the plans for conducting a deliberative poll along with public opinion polls have been scrapped. However, the two sides are experiencing difficulties in deciding on the question.

Ahn’s side is said to prefer asking the respondents who they thought would have an advantage over Saenuri Party’s Park in the election. 

Moon’s side is reported to have pushed for asking the respondents to decide who was more suitable as the unified candidate.

The two sides’ positions are thought to be a reflection of various survey results, which show that Ahn has higher ratings that Moon when pitted against Park, but the DUP candidate has stronger support as the progressive coalition’s candidate. 

Gallup Korea’s polls for the third week of November showed that Ahn received 46 percent support while Moon was given 44 percent support in the scenario where each candidate competed with Park in a two-way race. 

However, 45 percent of the respondents picked Moon when asked who they felt was more suited to represent the Ahn-Moon coalition. Ahn’s figure came in at 35 percent.

In addition to the question, the negotiators still need to agree on the timing of the survey, as previous surveys have given varying results for the candidates depending on the day of the week. In a number of surveys Ahn has shown strength on weekends, while Moon’s results were higher on weekdays. 

As the deadline nears, the possibility of the two candidates taking a more direct hand in the negotiations is rising.

“I expect that good results can be produced if the two candidates’ wisdom is put together if the negotiation teams fail to reach a conclusion,” Ahn said at a forum organized by broadcast journalists association. 

While the two sides strained to produce results, the ruling Saenuri Party continued to attack the coalition, with its presidential candidate Park Geun-hye pointing the finger at Ahn and Moon for the lack of discussion on policies. 

“This raises concerns for the future of the country. Is this creating a foggy situation political reform?” Park said in an interview on Tuesday. She added that the current situation is the most unstable since the direct election was introduced in 1987, and that the prolonged candidate unification process is responsible for keeping policies off the main stage.

“I wonder who the unification is for. The return of a failed administration, establishing an unstable administration -- is either the leadership we need now?” she asked referring to Moon’s ties to Roh Moo-hyun administration and Ahn’s lack of experience. 

Park’s comments were accompanied by increasingly vehement barrage from her election camp. 

Ahn Hyung-hwan, spokesperson for Park’s central election committee, compared Moon to a delinquent student trying to cash in on a younger student’s assets and Ahn to a morally lacking candidate prepared to gain power at any cost. 

“When the ‘candidate resignation talks’ themselves are nothing more than an underhand political maneuver, there is no way the process can be good,” Ahn Hyung-hwan said in a statement.

“The two sides are confusing the public by leaking information advantageous to themselves. Each side is blaming the other, and continuing a battle of wills. Ahn’s comment, ‘the process is as important as the results,’ lost its value during this mudslinging.” 


By Choi He-suk 
(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)