[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyemin] The United Future Party identified the "lack of support recovery from the centrist voters" as the biggest cause of their crushing defeat in the April 15 general election. The absence of a clear party stance on the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye was also pointed out as one of the reasons for the loss.
According to the United Future Party on the 11th, the party's Special Committee for the Production of the General Election White Paper analyzed the causes of the election defeat for about a month starting from the end of June and reached this conclusion. Special Committee Chairperson Jeong Yang-seok reported the draft of the white paper to Emergency Committee Chairperson Kim Jong-in the day before. The white paper is scheduled to be made public after the Emergency Committee's final report on the 13th.
The white paper contains ten reasons for the worst defeat in the party's history in the recent general election. Among them, the "lack of support recovery from the centrist voters" was seen as the main cause of defeat.
The failure to gain support from the centrist voters was attributed to ▲controversial remarks during the middle of the election campaign and the ruling party's inadequate efforts to highlight these remarks as an issue ▲failure to conduct the best candidate nominations. The party leadership was criticized for not decisively handling former leader Hwang Kyo-ahn's inappropriate remarks related to the "Telegram Nth Room" scandal and candidate Cha Myung-jin's offensive comments about the Sewol ferry disaster, which surfaced mid-campaign. Regarding candidate nominations, the conflict between the Nomination Management Committee and the Supreme Council, which highlighted internal disputes, was also pointed out.
The lack of a clear party stance on former President Park's impeachment was also identified as one of the reasons for the defeat. It was pointed out that the failure to organize a party position after the impeachment led to a decline in favorability toward the conservative camp itself. A United Future Party official stated, "Although it was noted that there was no clear stance, it essentially means there was no reflection on the impeachment."
Besides these, the white paper cited ▲positive evaluations of the president due to praise for COVID-19 quarantine efforts ▲government and ruling party's disaster relief payments ▲alienation of voters under their 40s ▲absence of strong presidential candidates as other causes of defeat.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
