Former UN chief drops out of SK presidential race
Print Edition
FORMER United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon abruptly ended his attempt to seek South Korea’s presidency yesterday, dropping a lifetime of diplomacy to denounce his country’s political establishment.
Ban returned home last month after a decade in New York and was widely expected to run in elections due this year, but his putative candidacy ran into a series of stumbles and he struggled for backing.
“I will give up my pure intention to bring about a change in politics under my leadership and to unify the country,” he told reporters at a hastily arranged press conference. “I’m sorry for disappointing many people.”
Although he never officially declared he was running, the former UN chief embarked on a series of public appearances and repeatedly spoke of the need to bring about a “change in politics” in a country where a wide-ranging corruption scandal has seen the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.
Reports claimed he had signed a contract to rent a 660 square meter office in Seoul, and as recently as Tuesday he was urging a change to the constitution to dilute the sweeping executive powers of the presidency and ensure more co-operative governance.
The 72-year-old was widely expected to join Park’s Saenuri party or an emerging conservative breakaway group for the presidential elections, which are due this year whatever the outcome of the impeachment process.
But he struggled to secure backing, and there were corruption allegations against some of his relatives.
“I was very disappointed by the parochial, selfish attitudes of some politicians,” he said yesterday. “I reached a conclusion that it would be meaningless to move forward with them.”
Ban added: “In order to resolve our current problems, we need to abandon the self-conceited attitude of ‘it must be me or no one else’.”
But he was the author of his own misfortune to some extent, analysts said, lacking a clear political platform and failing to translate his prominent global role into domestic support.
Pictures of him trying to put two banknotes into a ticket machine at the same time made him appear out of touch, and front-page photos of him wearing a bib to feed porridge to an old woman flat on her back in a care home sparked public anger.
He was criticized for wearing head-to-toe protective gear to try out a disinfectant spray at a farm, when most of those around him were not similarly dressed, and he also came under fire for becoming infuriated with reporters who asked questions about a controversial agreement between South Korea and Japan on wartime sex slaves.
“My pure patriotism and aspirations have fallen victim to slander that was close to personality slaughter,” he said yesterday, before bowing briefly, shuffling his papers and leaving the stage to a barrage of camera flashes.
His support in public opinion polls had rapidly declined from 20.3 percent when he returned to 13.1 percent before his announcement.
Saenuri called Ban’s withdrawal from politics “regrettable.”
“We cannot but deplore that he was discouraged by the selfishness of some politicians,” it said in a statement.
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