| People Power Party presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl raise his hands after being named as the main opposition party's candidate during a primary event in Yongsan District, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap |
Ex-prosecutor general named PPP's presidential candidate
By Nam Hyun-woo
The battle between the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) candidate Yoon Seok-youl and ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) candidate Lee Jae-myung in the upcoming presidential election will be a fight between “a person with common sense and a person without it” and between “a rationalist and a populist,” according to Yoon, Friday.
Yoon was elected as the PPP candidate in the final round of the party's primaries, securing 47.85 percent of votes cast against Rep. Hong Joon-pyo's 41.5 percent, and becoming the first former prosecutor general to be named a presidential candidate.
In the run up to the March 9 presidential election, Yoon will compete against the DPK's Lee, the People Party's Ahn Cheol-soo and other as yet unnamed candidates.
Yoon and Hong staged a neck-and-neck race during the primaries, but he clinched the candidacy after outstripping the latter in party members' votes. Yoon collected 210,034 ballots in party members' voting, while Hong received 126,519. Hong garnered a greater approval rating than Yoon in public surveys, but this was insufficient to make up for the lack of votes from party members.
In his acceptance speech, Yoon expressed his gratitude for the party's choice and denounced the ruling party, saying he represents “common sense,” while the DPK's Lee was an icon of “a lack of common sense.”
“The responsibility of changing the government comes heavier than the joy of being nominated as the PPP candidate,” Yoon said in the speech in Yongsan District, Seoul.
“The upcoming presidential election will be a battle between a Yoon with common sense and a Lee without it. It will also be a battle between a rationalist and a populist. I urge the public to hand down a stern judgment on the ruling party and its candidate who are dividing the nation with populist promises.”
Yoon's remarks were targeting Lee's election pledges including providing a basic income to all people, something that not only Yoon but also other PPP presidential hopefuls attacked as populism.
| People Power Party presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl, right, hugs his rival Rep. Hong Joon-pyo during the main opposition party's final primary round in Yongsan District, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap |
Throughout his speech, Yoon also stressed fairness and justice, in an apparent bid to remind voters of the process by which Lee became the presidential candidate of the main opposition party despite having no background in politics.
Yoon, who was the top prosecutor of the Moon Jae-in administration, joined the main opposition party after locking horns with President Moon over an investigation into corruption allegations involving Cho Kuk, a former justice minister and close aide to Moon.
“The Moon administration will feel the pain of me being nominated as the PPP candidate, because I am a symbol of fairness who crushed the hypocrisy of Cho Kuk,” Yoon said. “Now I am not just an individual but have become the icon of the public's wish for the recovery of fairness and justice.”
Regarding national security, Yoon pledged to strengthen efforts to denuclearize North Korea based on close cooperation with other nations. He added that he will enhance ties with countries sharing the value of democracy, and engage with them based on pragmatism.
“In summary, the PPP primaries ended in Yoon's victory, as the candidate established his image as the symbol of the antithesis to Moon and the current administration,” said Eom Gyeong-yeong, a director of the Zeitgeist Institute, a private political think tank.
“When you see things from a broad perspective, the public wish to replace the administration accounts for a significant portion in gauging a presidential election. In this sense, Yoon has successfully styled himself to represent the public and the party's sentiment against the Moon government.”
Following Yoon's nomination, presidential candidates of both the DPK and the PPP are undergoing investigations into respective corruption allegations against them that will act as decisive variables in their campaigns.
Currently, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials is investigating an allegation that Yoon influenced the United Future Party, the predecessor of the PPP, to lodge criminal complaints against several pro-government figures ahead of the general election in April last year.
On the other hand, the prosecution is also investigating a land development scandal in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, over suspicions that DPK candidate Lee, who was mayor of Seongnam at the time of the project, is linked to the scandal, in which a small and newly established asset management firm raked in more than 1,000 times its investment.
“As the Seongnam scandal touched off the public sentiment so strongly, the overall support rate for the DPK, Lee and President Moon are plunging. Given this, the impact of the investigation into Yoon's issue could be overshadowed by the Seongnam scandal,” Eom said.
Recent surveys show a mixed outlook for the upcoming race. In a poll by Gallup Korea released Friday before the primary's final result was announced, the DPK's Lee was leading with support of 26 percent, followed by Yoon with 24 percent and Hong with 15 percent. In a separate survey by Embrain Public, KSTAT Research, Korea Research International and Hankook Research released Thursday, however, Yoon secured 35 percent, followed by Lee with 30 percent.
As has Yoon become the flag-bearer of the PPP, attention is also on whether he will meet with President Moon Jae-in. Last month, Moon met Lee and congratulated him on his nomination as the ruling party's presidential candidate.
The PPP criticized the meeting, saying the President was unfairly “intervening” in the presidential election, although Cheong Wa Dae rebuffed this noting that chances were open for a meeting between Moon and a PPP candidate, regardless of who won the primary.