Entrepreneur-turned-professor Ahn Cheol-soo has officially thrown his hat into the ring, making the upcoming Dec. 19 presidential election a three-way race with the ruling Saenuri Party’s Park Geun-hye and opposition Democratic United Party (DUP)’s Moon Jae-in. Ahn declared in a news conference in Seoul on Sept. 19, “People I have met over the past months have expressed their wishes for political reform. Old politics should be revamped. I’ll run for president.”

The political rookie has enjoyed popularity among young people due to his liberal inclination and his image of distancing himself from the political establishment.

Ahn said, “I cannot help but to think about so many things before making my decision to take on the responsibility for the huge task of state administration, and I’m trying to address the task of the time, which is entrusted to me.” He stressed that political reform should be launched from a stage of campaigning, adding that he’s heard directly from the people that politics shouldn’t remain what it is and that it must now be renewed. 

The presidential contender blasted the ruling and opposition parties for their flimsy and continual false propaganda and mud-slinging campaigns, which he said would create a split among the people. He added that touting integration while branding half of the people as enemies amounts to hypocrisy.

As to some views over his lack of political experience, he said he has no political experience, organization, or power, as well as few debts, so he would never distribute official positions as spoils. He pledged himself to compete fairly and justly so as to make truth pervade in the political arena and create for the nation a better future. 

Ahn’s declaration of his candidacy for president came on Sept. 19, three days after the opposition DUP nominated Moon, a civil rights lawyer-turned-politician and a confidant of late President Roh Moo-hyun, as its presidential candidate.

Moon won the DUP’s presidential primary race by garnering 347,184 votes, or 56.5 percent of the total votes cast, followed by Sohn Hak-kyu with a 22.2 percent share, Kim Doo-gwan with 14.5 percent, and Chung Se-kyun with 7.0 percent.

In delivering his acceptance speech for candidacy for president, Moon said, “I will be a president of healing people’s pain and suffering by administrating state affairs based on communication and harmony, fairness and justice, through sympathy and solidarity.”

Moon was considered the No. 2 man of the late President Roh administration while serving as the Chief of Staff at Cheong Wa Dae. He was the first chief of staff of a former president to be nominated as the presidential candidate of a major opposition party.

He said, “I’ll make a world in which ordinary people are given priority by breaking the vested rights of politics, chaebeol (conglomerates), and cartels of the privileged colluding with politicized prosecutors.” 

Moon unveiled his campaign pledge, dubbed “30-80 Era of the Korean Peninsula,” calling for ushering in an era of the Korean Peninsula posting $30,000 per capita income and a population of 80 million through economic combination of South and North Korea. If he were elected to the presidency, he said, he will send a special envoy to the North to invite a North Korean delegation to his inauguration ceremony and to seek a meeting of South and North Korean leaders within one year in office. 

He proposed a watered-down version from the current presidential system in which all powers are concentrated on the president, calling for a prime minister to take over part of the president’s powers.  

The public limelight is now focused on whether Moon and Ahn will agree on fielding a unified candidate, as it was in the last Seoul Mayor’s election in which Ahn quit his mayoral race and supported an opposition candidate, current Mayor Park Won-soon.

Moon expressed the hope that his DUP party would take the lead in fielding a unified candidate by collaborating with Ahn. 

Rough sailing is expected for both sides to agree on fielding a unified candidate to take on the ruling party front-runner Park. Moon, once an underdog, has seen his approval rating soaring after his nomination as the DUP candidate. 

A local poll released on Sept. 18 showed that Moon’s approval rating stood at 47.1 percent, surpassing ruling party candidate Park’s 44 percent in a simulated head-to-head showdown for the first time.

Ahn’s declaration of his candidacy will officially mark the start of a three-way race. The independent political rookie has been seen as a dark horse challenger to the ruling and opposition candidates in various polls for months.

The ruling Saenuri Party was seen bracing for a two-pronged attack on the main opposition DUP’s Moon and the independent Ahn, whose potential alliance poses a major threat to its candidate Park.

Moon also revealed the initial makeup of his planning team that will set up the presidential election committee and devise campaign strategies. The team will not have a chief, and instead be co-run by the members including three-term lawmakers Noh Young-min and Park Young-sun, former Rep. Kim Boo-kyeom and civic activist-turned-lawmaker Lee Hack-young.

“If the existing planning team were operated on a vertical structure under a chief, Moon’s team will be a horizontal organization where every member is a representative as well as a member,” a spokesperson said.

Additional external members will be announced within a day or two with the goal of forming the election committee before the Chuseok holidays, she said.

The ruling Saenuri Party has elected Rep. Park Geun-hye, 60, as its nominee to run for the Dec. 19 presidential election on Aug. 20.

The five-term lawmaker Park’s win marks the first time a major party has nominated a woman as its presidential candidate. If she wins the upcoming presidential election, Park will be the first daughter of a former president to become the Chief Executive. 

She is the eldest daughter of the late President Park Chung Hee. 

In her acceptance speech shortly after winning the nomination on Aug. 20, Park called for what she called the “Third Wave of Change°™an Era of People’s Happiness,” surpassing the growth paradigm of industrialization and distribution paradigm of economic democratization. Mindful of the swirling debate over welfare and the distribution of wealth, Park came up with her campaign keywords - a combination of economic democratization, welfare, and job  creation -, departing from her previous campaign pledges°™“julpulse”°™a Korean acronym indicating lower taxes and smaller government, reduced restrictions, and the maintaining of law and order. 

She is making a pitch for the Third Wave of Change, stressing the need for a shift in the national paradigm from state-oriented policies to people-centered ones. She said, “In order to usher in a new era of people’s happiness, a new system will be established to ensure the integration of economic democratization, welfare, and job creation.” 

Declaring a balance between growth and welfare, Park noted she will take the first steps toward economic democratization and job creation. In this regard, Park also emphasized growth, saying that growth and welfare will go hand in hand, not separately. She touched on shared growth among large-sized companies and SMEs and the abolition of discrimination against temporary and irregular workers. 

Political parties°™ruling and opposition alike°™have added topics such as welfare and economic democratization to their campaign pledges to win voters’ hearts in the upcoming presidential election. One of the major DUP campaign pledges is halving university students’ tuition fees, becoming one of the controversies over so-called political welfare populism.