Moon, Ahn at odds over single candidacy

By Lee Tae-hoon

Moon Jae-in

Ahn Cheol-soo

The campaign team for Ahn Cheol-soo expressed strong displeasure Thursday over speculative remarks made by aides to main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) candidate Rep. Moon Jae-in on the independent presidential contender’s future moves.

Aides to Ahn claimed that Moon’s camp is feeding misleading information, such as the creation of a new political party, to reporters to take the upper hand in the selection of a single candidate to represent the opposition.

“Citing DUP officials, the media are making factually incorrect claims about agreements reached between Ahn and Moon in a meeting on Tuesday,” Yoo Min-young, a spokesman for Ahn, said in a press briefing.

“We express strong regret over this.”

He argued Moon’s camp continues to use the media for political gain by deliberately releasing baseless information that undermines Ahn’s popularity and that this goes against the spirit of the two liberal candidates’ agreement.

“It is doubtful that they can win the hearts of the people by playing the media,” Yoo said.

Some media outlets reported that Moon and Ahn discussed launching a new political party during their closed-door talks.

Given that Ahn's popularity is largely based on people disappointed by established politicians’ incompetence to eradicate corruption and failure to curb economic polarization, his push to form or join a political party is expected to have a negative fallout.

Some DUP officials also reportedly said that they are convinced that the software millionaire-turned-politician will voluntarily withdraw his candidacy to support Moon and wait for his chance in the 2017 presidential race.

Currently, working level officials from both Ahn and Moon camps are mapping out a joint declaration on political reform, which will likely be released no later than Sunday.

In the first meeting of representatives Thursday, the two sides agreed on four items that will serve as guidelines for the upcoming joint declaration on “new politics.”

The envisioned declaration aims to lay the blueprint for the unified liberal candidate’s policy directions and hopefully stop supporters of Ahn or Moon defecting once one of them withdraws their candidacy.

In a joint press briefing held after the meeting, the representatives said they agreed on the need to set directions for “new politics;” revamp the country’s political system and parties; draw a roadmap for an alliance that ensures liberals take power; and measures to push forward such changes.

They will hold another session today.

Despite agreeing on the big framework, observers say the two sides will still have hard time adjusting the details as Moon opposes some of Ahn’s earlier political reform plans, such as reducing the number of lawmakers.

DUP members fear Moon’s withdrawal of his presidential candidacy may deal a heavy blow to their party.