Former prime minister Goh Kun announced today—rather shockingly—that he would NOT be running for president in December.
Goh, who was Korea’s best post-Kim Dae-jung president, also announced he would be retiring from politics.
I’m sure Andy Jackson will be breaking down how this affects the presidential race a little later.
23 Comments
This is rather significant event. I believe Kim DaeJung is behind this decision. Or, even Kim Jongil.
1) These people have dug up something in the past. A skeleton in Goguhn’s closet.
2) Or, somebody threatened Go about his life.
3) Kim DaeJung, who promised Go the next presidency, maybe renegging his promise. Kim may have another candidate. But, who? Kim GunTae, Chung “DingDong” DongYoung, or Han Myengsook? Or, a dark horse?
These Commies seem to have found something dirty about Lee MyengBak as well. This year’s election is anybody’s guess. Rho may step down soon.
Whole country is confused. A military coup is not impossible.
Basically, the Chinese (money and spies) and the Japanese (money and spies) are fighting it out in Korea. I think the Chinese will through Korean Commies.
Disappointing news since it leaves a bunch of less palatable candidates.
that is too incredible to believe.
Amusing as I find Baduk’s conspiracy theories - which aren’t altogether implausible - this is Korea - my theory is that Goh has dropped out because his brand of progressive conservatism has little or no traction with the Right (at least with him at the head of the list, given all the other more loyal contenders in the GNP stable, and he has figured out the Roh’s Know Nothings and the the rump of DJ’s democratics are not the stuff upon which he could really accomplish anything as president. I applaud his principles in withdrawing, if that’s what they are.
Skeleton?
All of these candidates have a T-Rex in their closet.
I’m just surprised that Ban Ki Moon has been able to keep the archeologists out of his back yard.
Hah!Park Gunhae already knew about it. That’s why she changed her unique hair style.
It reminds of Perot when he briefly dropped out of the presidential election of 1988 claiming his daughter was threatened. He later came back to the race.
Collin Power dropped out of the presidential bid insinuating a similar threat.
A strong presidential candidate, Go Guhn, suddenly quits. I can think of nothing but blackmail or out-and-out threat on his life.
But, who is doing it? And, who will benefit from this? For whom, is Go doing this?
This is the second biggest event in this administration that made my conspiracy mind rattle. The first one was the alleged suicide of Jeong Monghyen, then-president of Hyundai Tourism Co., the one that oversaw KumGang Mountain Trip.
baduk, I’m just curious. Say a constitutional amendment was made so you could run in the next Korean elections, what would be some of your campaign promises? Put all former Korean presidents in a zoo so kids could throw shrimp-flavoured snacks at them?
Collin Power, is that Austin Power’s brother?
Someguy has a great idea with the zoo, except Roh has a tendency to throw his feces, they’ll have to be careful with that one….
Speaking of Roh flinging his poop:
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engne.....041E7.html
That’s like the No. 1 recurring theme with Roh, “They’re distorting my policies,” as if there is some magical pure form of his policies the media is blocking from taking effect. What a knob.
Funniest thing I’ve read all day :).
If Goh were to try a Perot, it would immediately doom his renewed candidacy since he will have irretrievably damaged the one thing that seems at least to set him apart from the all the other usual suspects. I think he’s too smart for that and stand by my earlier respectful view that knowing that even if elected he couldn’t succeed in accomplishing anything particularly useful with the knuckleheads for a political base he’s decided to forego the ego gratification of becoming the BSD.
Could be, but well, Kim DJ “quit politics” some half-a-dozen times before finally getting elected Prez… Goh could just be stepping back in order to allow the formation of a new center-left party which would then draft him to serve as their candidate, and he would reluctantly accept “the Call of the People” for “the Good of the Nation” — that would fit with a pattern of Korean politics as I’ve seen it.
Well, I agree with Baduk that this sounds like a conspiracy. My Korean professor at my university in the U.S. said that all the politicians have been around long enough and done such things as sleep with any number of socially unacceptable partners, that if you piss off the right people, you can doom yourself because they will release that information.
I really do think its a shame that Ko dropped out, but as has been suggested, he may pull a Michael Jordan too. He was the only person who ever seemed half dignified and half inteligent in Roh’s administration. But that really leaves a candidate-less field on the left side.
I’m gonna have to disagree with Baduk on this one. This is presuming that we are in the 1960-80s, when a generation of ROK Army generals — either fresh from their militarist training under the Japanese (like Park Chung-hee), or battle experience in Vietnam (like Chun Doo-hwan & Noh Tae-woo) — led the Korean Army. These were members of the old vanguard — the Japanese Generation, the Korean War generation and the Vietnam Generation (those Koreans born between 1910-1940 who were either educated in Japan, fought in the Korean war or served in Vietnam). They were really the golden generation of Korea, as this generation was composed of highly educated and aggressive individuals (even by today’s standards), who were extremely ambitious and politically aware (unlike the current generation of Koreans today), while chomping at the bit for political, national and economic reform.
Unfortunately, these people have all either passed away, or retired long ago. The Korean Army now, is being run by post-war born, apolitical, career-minded generals, who have had NO combat experience anywhere in the world, and at best have a few PKOs on their CVs. Korean officers nowadays, are not only career-minded, politically naive, and sheltered individuals who are high on the concept of promotion boards, 20-year careers with lifelong pensions, but short on the idea of political reform (read: Coups) or anything to do with politics, they do not believe — due to post-Chun Doo-hwan brainwashing — that officers should never be disloyal to their government.
In effect, over the past 20 years, the ROK military has been forced to realign their loyalties not to their commanding officers and the generals (as was the case prior to 1987), but to the nation, and in effect, have adopted the American notion of a military run by civilians.
These doctrinal changes have created a post-1987 ROK officer corps that has granted officers a professional status in Korean society (something they were always lacking), and job security in exchange for being completely apolitical. Do not expect any kind of coup de’tat anytime soon (or ever), as ROK officers are completely unlike their predecessors of a previous generation.
Hell, I know from personal experience that the average ROK Army field grade officer doesn’t even read a newspaper or watch the TV news, or give a rat’s ass about any type of current events, let alone politics.
I’m more concerned about North Korean meddling in South Korean politics vis-a-vis their influence with the current gov’t, e.g., Ministry of Unification, etc. The NKs have the potential to conduct an insurgency of their own and take over S. Korea politically, should they decide to do so. They’re just biding their time now, waiting for an opportunity. In thhe inimitable words of retired U.S. Special Forces Colonel “Bull” Simons:
“History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight, someone who has the will to fight will take over.”
That was my first thought.
2nd thought was that people in favor of Goh thinking he would be a night-n-day difference from Roh as far as US-SK policy goes are probably right, but as mayor of Seoul, I know Goh used anti-US/USFK sentiment to put pressure on Yongsan on several fronts over the years.
3rd thought was related to Baduk’s second comment:
Perot also said he was backing out of the race because the Democrat party seemed to have gotten its act together. I remember hearing that directly from him on the TV news during an interview.
oops, I made a typo above. It should read as follows:
Good! I’m glad.
The nightmare scenario for me in the next presidential election was Goh, Lee MyungPak and Park GeunHye each egotistically refusing to drop out and splitting the sane vote, letting Chung DY or K GeunTae cruise into the presidency and inaugerate another 5 years of Uri-dang incompetence.
Perhaps Goh realized that while he didn’t have the numbers to win, he did have the numbers to screw up one of the two people whom this country desperately needs to win. If so, good on him.
I bet Goh Gun is not running again.
I bet Lee Myung Bak will win no matter what.
I think Park Geun Hye won’t quit.
I think HanNara Dang will have a split, with the DaeGu faction accusing Lee Myung Bak with all sorts of things, including the visit to Kim Dae Jung, although he visited almost all of the past Presidents.
Lee Myung Bak will win no matter what. Park Geun Hye will lose, because all she has is the DaeGu faction.
wjk #20, I’m with you on this. Canals forever!
H. Kim, nice post. Very informative and I believe, correct.
That was in 1992, not 1988.
At one point (before he dropped out suddenly, totally surprising his supporters) Perot was outpolling both Bush “41″ (running for re-election) and Clinton.
Perot still got 19% of the total vote, although he didn’t win any states. I still think he threw the election to Clinton (ie that the vast majority of the 19% were disgruntled potential Bush voters), although the “experts” at the time said he drew support from both sides equally.
Many things might have been different had Bush 41 been re-elected, not least of which might have been US-ROK relations.
Perot got 9% of the total popular vote when he ran again in 96, again (IMO) ensuring the re-election of Clinton. I’ve always thought idly about Dole being smart enough to read the tea leaves early on in 1996; if Dole had suddenly thrown his support to Colin Powell prior to the 1996 Repub convention, and persuaded Powell to run, history might have been changed.
Wishing for the moon of course. Oh well, maybe Hillary will turn out better than her husband.
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[...] As Marmot’s Hole readers already know from Rob’s earlier post, Goh Kun has dropped out of the presidential race. Yonhap has more: “I anguished a lot and decided not to run in the 2007 presidential election,” Goh said in a statement distributed at his campaign office in Seoul. “I also decided to wrap up my political activity beginning today…” [...]