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Chung Mong-jun's entrance and exit was a dramatic, but hollow political story. There seems to be no precedent for any democracy for a strong candidate to abandon his race to a rival over a single day-long poll. It is not unreasonable that the many people who watched the candidate believed he would be swept into office.
The so-called "Chung-phoon" might be a phenomenon, but it left an ugly image of politicians in its wake. It was a "win at all costs" campaign. If Chung had been selected as a candidate, the MDP, who claim to be the orthodox opposition, would have been left without a presidential candidate for the first time in half a century.
Not to speak of the ideology and identity, the political parties have even abandoned their pride simply to obtain victory. This is the reason we cannot applaud the MDP candidate, Roh Mu-hyun's, successful gamble.
The second problem is the massive power of public opinion polls. Polls are supposed to be only a reference to policy-making and campaign strategy, but they have come to dominate politics to such a degree that a presidential candidate is chosen by them.
Roh's assumptions worked on the idea that even the candidate that was selected by the party's primary can be replaced by an opinion survey, and Chung had the idea that a poll is equivalent to the Mandate of Heaven. That Chung, who had become a candidate based on strong public polls, had to leave for the same reason is truly ironic.
The people could not grasp Chung's political vision or agenda. The "Chung-phoon" was more like an advance index that let people know of the weakness of politics in Korea.
November 26, 2002
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