Park Won-soon visits Gwangju, leaving Seoul behind

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon visited Gwangju on Friday and made remarks that obviously sounded like campaign speech for a presidential election. He gave a presentation titled "From Gwangju in May 1980 to Gwangju in May 2016" in Chonnam National University and noted, “The 5.18 spirit of democracy, human rights, peace, and union will meet the new era, turning into new values and transforming people’s lives. I will live to carry on the history.” He added, “Although I am doing my best as Seoul mayor, I still feel guilty whenever I witness people’s desperate lives. Let us start over here in Gwangju.”

Even though Park called the 4.14 general election a "revolution" and called for "politics by people," he insisted that his visit to Gwangju had nothing to do with his ambition to be president. Clearly, he is taking the public as fools. He basically showed off his achievements by bringing up the spirit of Gwangju and calling for reformation. Park will have to face certain criticism that he, being less competitive than Ahn Cheol-soo and Moon Jae-in, ran to Gwangju for his campaign before UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrives in Korea.

He was already under fire for using Seoul as his personal camp for the presidential election. He added 59 more committees to the pre-existing ones and put liberal leftists and his friends in them. As for the public relations, apart from the group of 50 spokespersons, he made a separate division called "communication planning department" where 140 staffs are working. Supporting social cooperatives and local communities as well as implementing the "laborer executive system" are seen as his attempt to build up more support for him.

If Park indeed has the 5.18 spirit, he should not have gone to Gwangju for a political campaign when his job is to work for the people in Seoul. If becoming a president is his goal, he should resign as the mayor first, and carry on his campaign with his own money. That is the right move.