Campaigners of opposition hopeful Moon resign to form greater liberal camp
문재인 민주통합당 대선후보와 안철수 무소속 대선후보의 후보 단일화 문제가 난항을 겪고 있는 23일 오전 서울 영등포 민주통합당 당사에서 중앙선대위원장단회의가 열리고 있다.2012.11.23/뉴스1 ⓒ News1 이광호 기자
The move came one day after independent presidential hopeful Ahn Cheol-soo withdrew from the presidential election, endorsing Moon as the sole candidate of the so-called liberal camp.
Moon's top election campaigners "agreed there is a need to form a new election camp through an alliance based on the spirit of mutual consent and cooperation between Moon and Ahn," Park Kwang-on, a spokesman for Moon, told reporters.
Other officials from the main opposition party noted the new election camp will likely include supporters of Ahn and some of Moon's top 10 campaigners, who offered to resign Saturday.
Moon and Ahn had earlier sought to field a single candidate after a two-way competition through opinion polls. Differences on how the opinion polls should be conducted had kept them at odds, though they h
ad both agreed on the need to field a single candidate to face ruling party candidate Rep. Park Geun-hye in the Dec. 19 election.
"Locking horns over the method of merging candidacies is not righteous for the people anymore," Ahn told a nationally televised press briefing Friday.
Park, the presidential candidate of the ruling Saenuri Party, strongly denounced the merging of candidacies between Moon and Ahn, claiming the opposition were trying to win the election with only tactics an
d that it showed how they are still stuck in the mud.
"I wonder if the people will not get confused by all this. I, on the other hand, intend to bring changes that the people want and work to establish the right kind of new politics," she told reporters Saturday.
[Yonhap]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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