Ahn Cheol-soo and Kim Eun-hye overturn the exit poll… Have Bundang’s ‘Shy Conservatives’ Gathered?

Opinion polls were always inferior… Side by side, ‘Knight Revival’
Ahn Cheol-soo “I’m scared of the public sentiment… “I will speak bitterly.”

In the A-Eul elections in Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, which were considered major battlegrounds in the 22nd general election, People Power Party candidates Ahn Cheol-soo and Kim Eun-hye won side by side, overturning the results of opinion polls and exit polls that predicted them to be inferior.

According to the National Election Commission on the 11th, President-elect Ahn Cheol-soo of Bundang-gap was behind Democratic Party candidate Lee Kwang-jae in the pre-election vote in 11 wards in the constituency, excluding 1 Imae 2-dong, in 10 wards, but won in all 11 wards in the main vote. He defeated candidate Lee with an overwhelming lead.

At around 6 PM the previous day, the three terrestrial broadcasting companies released exit poll results for the Bundang-gap area, showing ‘Candidate Lee Gwang-jae at 52.8% and Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo at 47.2%’. Several public opinion polls during the previous election campaign also showed that Candidate Ahn was falling behind Candidate Lee within the margin of error.

However, as a result of the vote count, Candidate Ahn was elected with a difference of 6.55 percentage points in the vote rate and a difference of more than 10,000 votes.

Regarding the results of the Bundang-gu vote, some say that the so-called ‘shy conservative’ supporters who did not actively participate in the early voting gathered together to support the idea of ​​stabilizing the state administration, and that this result reflects expectations for President-elect Ahn as a politician representing Bundang and Pangyo. An analysis is being presented.

Candidate Ahn entered the National Assembly as an independent in the Nowonbyeong by-election in Seoul in 2013, then ran as a candidate for the People’s Party in the 20th general election in 2016 and succeeded in being re-elected.

Afterwards, he ran for mayor of Seoul as a candidate for the People’s Party during the 2018 local elections and lost, but re-entered the National Assembly when he was elected in Bundang-gap, Seongnam, during the June 1 National Assembly by-election two years ago.

After being elected, Candidate Ahn said, “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the residents of Bundang and Pangyo. “My biggest calling is to make Bundang and Pangyo a city that can feed the future of the Republic of Korea,” he said, adding, “I also offer words of consolation to candidate Lee Gwang-jae, who did a good job.”

Regarding the results of this general election, he said, “I think the whiplash of public sentiment is scary. “It seems that (the government and the ruling party) did not meet the expectations of the people,” he said, adding, “I will take the lead in conveying the government’s vision for the future of the Republic of Korea and the problems of people’s livelihoods, and I will properly play a critical role.”

A ‘reversal’ also occurred in the Bundang constituency. In the exit polls of the three broadcasting companies, Democratic Party candidate Kim Byeong-wook (51.7%) was predicted to win over People Power Party candidate Kim Eun-hye (48.3%), but as a result of the vote count, candidate Kim Eun-hye was elected with 52.25% of the votes (based on 87.8% of votes counted).

President-elect Kim, a former MBC reporter, entered public service as the first deputy spokesperson for foreign media under the Lee Myung-bak administration in 2008, and entered the National Assembly for the first time by running as a Bundang Gap candidate in the 21st general election in 2020. After serving as chief public relations officer for the government Seok-yeol Yoon, he ran as a candidate for Gyeonggi governor in the June 1 local elections in 2022, but was defeated by former Deputy Prime Minister for Economy Kim Dong-yeon, who ran as a candidate for the Democratic Party.

After confirming his election this morning, he said, “I take seriously the public sentiment and Bundang residents’ wishes shown through their votes,” and added, “I will take an even lower stance in the future.”

Reporter Kim Hee-won [email protected]

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