Shin Dongwook: "Public Disappointment During the Unification Process"
Shin Dongwook, the spokesperson for the People Power Party's Central Election Committee, stated on the 3rd that the party would "humbly accept the will of the people" regarding the exit poll results from the three terrestrial broadcasters, which predicted that Kim Moonsoo, the People Power Party's presidential candidate, would receive 39.3% of the vote, trailing Lee Jaemyung, the Democratic Party candidate, who was projected to receive 51.7%.
After monitoring the vote counting situation at the situation room set up in the National Assembly Library in Yeouido, Seoul, on the afternoon of the 3rd, Shin said, "It seems the exit poll results fell short of our expectations, but we will calmly watch until the vote counting is complete."
Regarding the presidential election process, Shin remarked, "Compared to the Democratic Party, we started our campaign later," and added, "We believe there was a significant upward trend for us, and in the final phase of the campaign, the moral issues surrounding Lee Jaemyung and his family caused disappointment among the public, which led us to expect a close race."
On the exit poll results, he analyzed, "The Democratic Party was able to focus its campaign early on, as their candidate was decided sooner, but in our case, the process of unifying candidates and other factors may have caused disappointment among the public."
He continued, "If the Democratic Party comes to power, there is a very high possibility of de facto dictatorship, with legislative, judicial, and executive powers all concentrated in one place. We should have sufficiently informed the public of this risk, but that message was somewhat buried. Also, the fact that candidate Kim Moonsoo was far cleaner than Lee Jaemyung's family received a lot of positive response in the final days of the campaign, but we simply ran out of time."
He also explained that the fact this was an early presidential election held after the 12·3 Martial Law and impeachment was a burden for the People Power Party. Shin recalled, "This early election was held under the unprecedented circumstance of martial law, which made things very difficult for us and posed significant challenges in persuading the public. It was truly a tough election."
He added, "Regardless of the election outcome, there is some regret that we did not sufficiently inform the public about what could happen if the Democratic Party were to dominate the legislative process, carry out indiscriminate impeachments, and effectively control all three branches of government. Once the election results are finalized, we will review these issues, and I hope this becomes an opportunity for us to start anew and pursue better politics."
The three terrestrial broadcasters (KBS, SBS, and MBC) announced the expected vote shares immediately after the polls closed at 8 p.m. that evening: Lee Jaemyung with 51.7%, Kim Moonsoo of the People Power Party with 39.3%, and Lee Junseok of the Reform New Party with 7.7%.
This exit poll was conducted among 80,146 voters who cast their ballots at 325 polling stations nationwide from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. The margin of error is plus or minus 0.8 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.
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