Analysis: South Korean candidates’ challenges in final weekーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS
The race to become South Korea’s next president is heating up. A new poll shows the gap in support between the top two candidates has narrowed just one week before voting day. The election is expected to be a showdown between these two men. The largest opposition Democratic parties E Jong and the Conservative ruling party’s candidate Kim Munsu. He’s with the People Power Party. A Gallup Korea survey conducted last week found 45% Beck E and 36% support Kim. That’s a 9 percentage point difference. Just the week prior, the gap was 22 points. Ejunok from the minor conservative reform party trailed with 10% support. Kim and E’s combined support rate exceeds that of the front runner EJ. People in Soul told us what they are looking forward to in the next Tuesday’s vote. It’s a very important time for South Korea to return to normal. In that sense, I think EJ Mong is the candidate who is most prepared for that. The opposition parties make many mistakes. The president should not be involved in any misconduct or have moral issues. Kimuns does not have any of those problems. I hope the next president will be a person who can unify a divided society. I hope that the president can accept opinions from different people without being biased toward one side. And to delve further into the challenges the candidates are facing and what comes next, we turn to Ai Yoshuki. He is an HK world senior international correspondent and former soul bureau chief. Yoshuki, thanks for joining me. My pleasure. Let’s start with that gap between uh the two main contenders. It’s narrowed quite a bit. What is behind that? Uh one of the main reasons has to do with previous polling. Conservative voters saw Kim trading by more than 20 points at the start of the campaign. that served as a uh what should I say wakeup call for them to join and together and support him. Uh over the weekend the PPP candidate spent more time holding rallies in conservative strongholds. Kim also met with former president Pakun. She was ousted in 2017 but is still popular and seen as an icon among conservatives. Uh problem is experts say the party has been slow to show unity to its supporters. In fact, it took until Monday for Kim’s rival in the primary to appear at Kim’s rally to show his support. And uh there’s a major ongoing conflict inside the party. Its current leader openly apologized for what former president Yuniel did uh including the martial law decoration last year, but lawmakers close to Yun and Kim have not expressed a clear stance on it. It’s also worth mentioning that PPP has been trying to convince Ejunok of the Reform Party to step down. The thinking is the Conservative vote is split right now and will be better to unite behind Kim, but he said he’s not going anywhere. And neither is EJ, but he and his Democratic party are facing challenges as well. Could you tell us about those? Yes. Um, there have been a few bad headlines involving the Democrats recent recently. A lot of them were self-inflicted. One of the bigger gifts had to do with of all things coffee. EJ received a harsh criticism after saying a cup of coffee at the cafe costs only around 8 cents to to produce, but it actually sells for around $6. Lawmakers from other parties say eje does not really understand how the economy works. The Democratic Party also attracted controversy by proposing a bill on judicial reform. The aim was to allow people without a license to practice law to become Supreme Court justices. The PPP condemned the move. It said the reform could severely damage the separation of powers because those who are sympathetic towards the Democratic party could be easily placed in the judiciary. The party later retracted the proposal and now calls on members not to feel too optimistic about the election results and those results are not too far away now. What’s on the schedule in the final week of campaigning? Well, um there are the usual last ditch efforts to uh connect with the voters, but one of the bigger moments of the campaign period happens Tuesday. I’m referencing the final TV debate. We will not be able to know how it will affect voters. That’s because a blackout period starts Wednesday uh banning announcements of a new poll results. But what’s interesting about South Korean politics is that anything can happen. In 20 in the 2022 presidential election, two conservative candidates agreed to unite as a single candidate after the final TV debate. So, we need to watch until the very end. And looks like uh many are watching. Early voting is set for Thursday and Friday. The last vote attracted a 37% turnout. So experts expect that to jump this time and of course many people outside the country are also paying attention. That includes Japan, us here as well. So why does this election matter to Japan so much? Well um it matters because the two countries have been working together closely over the years and this year uh the two countries are commemorating the 60th anniversary of the bilateral relations. While campaigning, the EJO mentioned the importance of these ties, saying he has good feelings toward Japan’s people. That said, he has been known as a hardliner on Japan. Um, diplomacy has not been an issue at the race, but surrounding countries as well as the United States are definitely curious to uh see who will be the South Korean next president. Right. Well, thank you for your insight. NHK World’s senior international correspondent, Ali Yoshuki.
Election day in South Korea is one week away, and a new poll shows the gap in support separating the top two candidates has narrowed. NHK World Senior International Correspondent Aoki Yoshiyuki explains the challenges the presidential contenders are dealing with. #asia #analysis #southkorea #politics #president #election
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