Isangdon: "People Power Party 'Ahn Cheol-soo stuck in quagmire' losing support... Lee Jun-seok put the brakes"

"Experienced Ahn Cheol-soo Personally... No Knowledge If Negotiation With Him Is Possible"

Yoon Seok-yeol, the presidential candidate of the People Power Party (left), and Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate of the People Party / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Ju-hyung] Professor Lee Sang-don, an emeritus professor at Chung-Ang University who served as a member of the National Assembly for the People’s Party during the last 20th National Assembly, commented on the failed unification negotiations between Yoon Seok-yeol, the People Power Party’s presidential candidate, and Ahn Cheol-soo, the People’s Party candidate, saying, "I thought from the beginning that it wouldn’t work out."

Professor Lee said on June 1 during an appearance on TBS Radio’s 'Shin Jang Ga-eop' that "Candidate Ahn has been talking about unification for the past 10 years, so there is a lot of fatigue around that."

He added, "For someone like me who has directly experienced dealings with Candidate Ahn, I have no idea whether negotiation or consultation with a person like Ahn Cheol-soo is even possible."

He also pointed out, "Conservative newspapers have written many editorials and columns urging opposition unification, but I laughed inwardly. They don’t know Candidate Ahn well at all," and criticized, "There’s even talk that ‘If you want to win the election, make the opponent negotiate unification with Ahn Cheol-soo. Then you will win the election.’"

He continued, "If unification happens, both sides will be completely exhausted and fall into a quagmire, so the other side benefits. The People Power Party almost fell into that quagmire but pulled out at the last moment," explaining, "That’s also why Representative Lee Jun-seok applied the brakes strongly."

Professor Lee further claimed that the unification negotiations with Candidate Ahn actually had a negative impact on the People Power Party’s approval ratings.

Negotiations for the opposition unity between candidate Yoon and candidate Ahn are currently facing difficulties. The People Power Party criticized on the 27th of last month, stating that "there is a trust issue between both sides." / Photo by Yonhap News

He said, "The People Power Party fell into Ahn Cheol-soo’s quagmire, losing approval ratings and suffering damage. As a result, it turned into internal strife within the People Power Party," adding, "That’s why the gap in approval ratings, which was large, suddenly shrank. They lost those approval ratings by falling into Ahn Cheol-soo’s quagmire."

He continued, "Votes supporting Candidate Ahn do not fully go to the People Power Party," and criticized, "But by unnecessarily obsessing over unification, they lost some approval ratings, which allowed the Democratic Party to have a chance in the election. If this (unification issue) had been resolved quickly, it would have been more helpful, but it ended up like this because people who didn’t really know the situation were swayed by what others said."

Earlier, on May 27, Lee Tae-gyu, the general election countermeasures headquarters chief of the People’s Party, issued a statement regarding the failure of opposition unification, saying, "At the root of it was a trust issue between the two sides."

Lee added, "Watching both sides unilaterally expose everything to suit their own excuses and tastes, it was confirmed that the final decision to determine there was a trust problem in believing the various proposals from Candidate Yoon’s side was correct."

Candidate Ahn also criticized the People Power Party on June 1 after attending the government’s 'March 1st Movement Commemoration Ceremony' held at the National Provisional Government Memorial Hall in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, saying, "I officially proposed (unification) to the public three weeks ago," and "Three days ago, Candidate Yoon’s side contacted us, and our lawmakers went to listen, but they did not respond to any of the proposals (for a method of unification)."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.