South Korea’s United Future Party succeeded in creating a head-to-head battle between the left and right, but the party had to face a disgraceful defeat by avoiding ideological struggles and failing to set the right agenda for the election.
Although by winning over 100 seats the party barely managed to block the ability of Moon, Jae-in’s ruling Democratic Party to push through a constitutional amendment via a supermajority, it lost too many conservative warriors such as Na, Kyeong-won, Kim, Jin-tae, Jeon, Hee-kyeong, Min, Kyeong-wuk, Sim, Jae-cheol, Ahn, Sang-soo, Joo, Kwang-deok, Oh, Se-hoon, and Cha, Myeong-jin. I wonder how newly elected members like Tae, Goo-min (the famous North Korea defector also known as Thae, Yong-ho), Han, Ki-ho, Shin, Won-sik, Cheong, Kyeong-hee, and Kim, Ki-hyun will be able to cope with compensate for such losses.
The United Future Party’s election campaign strategies were extremely deplorable, and almost seemed as if they were chosen in order to fail.
1. Even though the UFP was the party which had elected two former presidents, Lee, Myeong-bak and Park, Geun-hye, it did not mount an active defense against the unfair trials and imprisonments of those two ex-presidents. It has acquiesced to the Moon, Jae-in regime’s “draining the swamp” strategy. By reneging on its duty to protect them, the UFP surrendered its role as a force for nation-building and confirmed its own corruption, serving to validate the accusations of the ruling party. It was a suicide mission which provided justification to the leftist party’s strategy of impeaching the former president. Hong, Jun-pyo’s decision to expel Park, Geun-hye from the party was a climax of self-denial.
2. The UFP has not clarified its official position regarding the impeachment for over three years despite its historical significance. It neither apologized for it nor defended it. This was not a just a question of courage, but of intellectual ability and sincerity.
3. The party’s leader Hwang, Gyo-ahn joined hands with Yoo, Seung-min, considered by conservatives to be a betrayer, without confronting the past. The betrayers who had impeached a former president and laid the groundwork for the coming to power of Moon’s current regime were granted positions of supremacy in the party’s unification process. This enraged traditional conservatives because the process did not take the form of absorbing the minor Bareun Future Party, but rather resulted in the UFP being intellectually absorbed by them.
Integration with Yoo – the beginning of the defeat
4. Yoo demanded that the name of the party be changed from Liberty Korea Party to United Future Party. It was a mistake that caused great confusion in terms of image-making ahead of the election. While the name of Liberty Korea Party clearly demonstrated the party’s ideological identity, the party’s new name of United Future Party seemed to have been an odd combination of terms lacking any logic. It was also hard to remember. I believe that more than 10 seats were lost as a result of this change.
5. At the moment Hwang welcomed “betrayer” Yoo into the party, he broke with Reverend Jeon, Kwang-hoon who had been representing the people at the large Gwanghwamun square rallies. This led to the departure of traditional conservatives and thwarted a successful launch of the United Future Party. The combined approval ratings of the UFP and Yoo’s Bareun Party were a negative-sum and became the basis figure determining the election outcome. The gap between ratings directly resulted in the gap between seats won in the election.
6. Ahn, Cheol-soo, who represents the moderate People’s Party, supported the UFP by not nominating candidates in local constituencies. Hwang, Gyo-ahn failed to take advantage of this move as an opportunity to integrate with the moderates. He could have shown his gratitude to Ahn even if only for the sake of appearances. Although it was impossible to win the election without the integration of conservatives and moderates, Hwang was satisfied with the United Future Party “going it alone”.
7. It was a crucial mistake motivated by arrogance and vanity to hand over candidate nominating authority to Kim, Hyeong-oh, Lee, Seok-yeon, and Kim, Se-yeon, who were not attached to the United Future Party. The nomination committee was in conflict with Hwang on every occasion. There has also been controversy over the problem of nominations based on personal ties. As a result, the committee failed to impress the public even after replacing more candidates than Democratic Party.
8. The party did not raise ideological issues on the agenda of the general election. Focusing on criticizing the ruling party for the economic collapse, it failed to make voters feel a sense of alarm because it turned a blind eye to the security, diplomacy, and North Korea issues. The agenda should have been presented as a choice between the “Republic of Korea and Kim Jong-un,” and between “liberal democracy and communist tyranny”.
9. The party was defensive in response to the Coronavirus epidemic. It should have held the Moon regime responsible for refusing to ban the entry of Chinese travelers, which led to the deaths of more than two hundred people. However, the public was overwhelmed by self-praising reports from pro-government news outlets. The party should have highlighted the fact that the death toll in South Korea was higher than that of Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Mongolia combined.
Hwang’s candidacy in the Jong-no District was a mistake.
10. Hwang’s candidacy in the Jong-no district proved to be a mistake. It was something that a leader should not have done. He jumped into a hard-to-win fight. He was pushed by the media to run, and the political strategist Kim, Jong-in, whose values do not reflect those of the party, took over the leadership of the UFP’s election campaign. Kim’s long track record and his old age made the image of the UFP appear even more old-fashioned.
11. The expulsions of candidates Kim, Dae-ho and Cha, Myung-jin from the party were incidents in which the party succumbed to the left-wing’s well-known tactics of smearing and “frame-up”. Kim, Jong-in, as chairman of the election campaign committee, could have turned that smear campaign to the party’s advantage if he had responded properly. Instead, he was so terrified that he issued a drastic prescription to expel those candidates. Th media actively distorted the remarks of those candidates, and mocked them by taking them out of context.
12. Despite all the statistics foreshadowing a crushing defeat, the UFP deceived voters into believing that it was winning. The party raised an “SOS” alarm signal saying “the ability to block a constitutional amendment is at stake” just two days before the election, but by then such an appeal was far too late.
In the end, Hwang, Gyo-ahn had abandoned ideological campaign strategies, and created a messy election campaign full of bureaucratic clichés. In Korea’s political arena where ideological confrontation continues, he proved the fact that ideology is the most important strategy. The core of an election campaign is image manipulation. However, the image of the United Future Party was vague. Image-building begins with proper terminology. The worst name, United Future Party, resulted in the loss of more than 10 seats. He was also seen as irresponsible as he hurriedly announced his resignation from the party’s leadership and left the scene in the midst of the vote counting process. In doing so, he perhaps hoped to avoid true responsibility for the inherent malpractice on the part of the UFP in this election.
Gab-je Cho is president of the internet media and publishing company Chogabje.com, was CEO, editor-in-chief, and managing editor of the magazine Monthly Chosun, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Although by winning over 100 seats the party barely managed to block the ability of Moon, Jae-in’s ruling Democratic Party to push through a constitutional amendment via a supermajority, it lost too many conservative warriors such as Na, Kyeong-won, Kim, Jin-tae, Jeon, Hee-kyeong, Min, Kyeong-wuk, Sim, Jae-cheol, Ahn, Sang-soo, Joo, Kwang-deok, Oh, Se-hoon, and Cha, Myeong-jin. I wonder how newly elected members like Tae, Goo-min (the famous North Korea defector also known as Thae, Yong-ho), Han, Ki-ho, Shin, Won-sik, Cheong, Kyeong-hee, and Kim, Ki-hyun will be able to cope with compensate for such losses.
The United Future Party’s election campaign strategies were extremely deplorable, and almost seemed as if they were chosen in order to fail.
1. Even though the UFP was the party which had elected two former presidents, Lee, Myeong-bak and Park, Geun-hye, it did not mount an active defense against the unfair trials and imprisonments of those two ex-presidents. It has acquiesced to the Moon, Jae-in regime’s “draining the swamp” strategy. By reneging on its duty to protect them, the UFP surrendered its role as a force for nation-building and confirmed its own corruption, serving to validate the accusations of the ruling party. It was a suicide mission which provided justification to the leftist party’s strategy of impeaching the former president. Hong, Jun-pyo’s decision to expel Park, Geun-hye from the party was a climax of self-denial.
2. The UFP has not clarified its official position regarding the impeachment for over three years despite its historical significance. It neither apologized for it nor defended it. This was not a just a question of courage, but of intellectual ability and sincerity.
3. The party’s leader Hwang, Gyo-ahn joined hands with Yoo, Seung-min, considered by conservatives to be a betrayer, without confronting the past. The betrayers who had impeached a former president and laid the groundwork for the coming to power of Moon’s current regime were granted positions of supremacy in the party’s unification process. This enraged traditional conservatives because the process did not take the form of absorbing the minor Bareun Future Party, but rather resulted in the UFP being intellectually absorbed by them.
Integration with Yoo – the beginning of the defeat
4. Yoo demanded that the name of the party be changed from Liberty Korea Party to United Future Party. It was a mistake that caused great confusion in terms of image-making ahead of the election. While the name of Liberty Korea Party clearly demonstrated the party’s ideological identity, the party’s new name of United Future Party seemed to have been an odd combination of terms lacking any logic. It was also hard to remember. I believe that more than 10 seats were lost as a result of this change.
5. At the moment Hwang welcomed “betrayer” Yoo into the party, he broke with Reverend Jeon, Kwang-hoon who had been representing the people at the large Gwanghwamun square rallies. This led to the departure of traditional conservatives and thwarted a successful launch of the United Future Party. The combined approval ratings of the UFP and Yoo’s Bareun Party were a negative-sum and became the basis figure determining the election outcome. The gap between ratings directly resulted in the gap between seats won in the election.
6. Ahn, Cheol-soo, who represents the moderate People’s Party, supported the UFP by not nominating candidates in local constituencies. Hwang, Gyo-ahn failed to take advantage of this move as an opportunity to integrate with the moderates. He could have shown his gratitude to Ahn even if only for the sake of appearances. Although it was impossible to win the election without the integration of conservatives and moderates, Hwang was satisfied with the United Future Party “going it alone”.
7. It was a crucial mistake motivated by arrogance and vanity to hand over candidate nominating authority to Kim, Hyeong-oh, Lee, Seok-yeon, and Kim, Se-yeon, who were not attached to the United Future Party. The nomination committee was in conflict with Hwang on every occasion. There has also been controversy over the problem of nominations based on personal ties. As a result, the committee failed to impress the public even after replacing more candidates than Democratic Party.
8. The party did not raise ideological issues on the agenda of the general election. Focusing on criticizing the ruling party for the economic collapse, it failed to make voters feel a sense of alarm because it turned a blind eye to the security, diplomacy, and North Korea issues. The agenda should have been presented as a choice between the “Republic of Korea and Kim Jong-un,” and between “liberal democracy and communist tyranny”.
9. The party was defensive in response to the Coronavirus epidemic. It should have held the Moon regime responsible for refusing to ban the entry of Chinese travelers, which led to the deaths of more than two hundred people. However, the public was overwhelmed by self-praising reports from pro-government news outlets. The party should have highlighted the fact that the death toll in South Korea was higher than that of Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Mongolia combined.
Hwang’s candidacy in the Jong-no District was a mistake.
10. Hwang’s candidacy in the Jong-no district proved to be a mistake. It was something that a leader should not have done. He jumped into a hard-to-win fight. He was pushed by the media to run, and the political strategist Kim, Jong-in, whose values do not reflect those of the party, took over the leadership of the UFP’s election campaign. Kim’s long track record and his old age made the image of the UFP appear even more old-fashioned.
11. The expulsions of candidates Kim, Dae-ho and Cha, Myung-jin from the party were incidents in which the party succumbed to the left-wing’s well-known tactics of smearing and “frame-up”. Kim, Jong-in, as chairman of the election campaign committee, could have turned that smear campaign to the party’s advantage if he had responded properly. Instead, he was so terrified that he issued a drastic prescription to expel those candidates. Th media actively distorted the remarks of those candidates, and mocked them by taking them out of context.
12. Despite all the statistics foreshadowing a crushing defeat, the UFP deceived voters into believing that it was winning. The party raised an “SOS” alarm signal saying “the ability to block a constitutional amendment is at stake” just two days before the election, but by then such an appeal was far too late.
In the end, Hwang, Gyo-ahn had abandoned ideological campaign strategies, and created a messy election campaign full of bureaucratic clichés. In Korea’s political arena where ideological confrontation continues, he proved the fact that ideology is the most important strategy. The core of an election campaign is image manipulation. However, the image of the United Future Party was vague. Image-building begins with proper terminology. The worst name, United Future Party, resulted in the loss of more than 10 seats. He was also seen as irresponsible as he hurriedly announced his resignation from the party’s leadership and left the scene in the midst of the vote counting process. In doing so, he perhaps hoped to avoid true responsibility for the inherent malpractice on the part of the UFP in this election.
Gab-je Cho is president of the internet media and publishing company Chogabje.com, was CEO, editor-in-chief, and managing editor of the magazine Monthly Chosun, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
