Prophecy of Ahn Cheol-soo

Former Chairman Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party came with a slogan of “Past vs. Future” for the presidential election on May 9. His approach is to highlight his strengths as a former CEO of venture company as well as dean of Seoul National University Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology by raising a question that who will best lead Korea in preparation for the fourth industrial revolution. To prepare for the future, one must rightly predict the future first. Up until now, Ahn’s prospect for future politics of Korea was quite satisfactory.

On Jan. 18, Mr. Ahn predicted that former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would resign his candidacy after the Lunar New Year holiday when Ban was busy making political moves. Right after the holiday, Ban withdrew his candidacy and Ahn gathered attention along with Ban as he was accurate to predict the timing of Ban’s resignation. In early February, then Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn’s running for the office was widely predicted, Mr. Ahn openly said that the acting president will not declare his candidacy for the president. Mr. Hwang decided not to run for office after thinking for a long time. Thanks to his comments, people began to call him by his nicknames such as Ahnstradamus (innuendo of Nostradamus) or AhnphaGo (compound word of Ahn Cheol-soo and AlphaGo).

Mr. Ahn appeared on March 12 at “The Youth, Ask the Way to Presidential Candidates,” a debate program aired on the Dong-A Ilbo’s Channel A and he said he was popular with his power to foresee the future when he was young. According to him, he warned the Kim Dae-jung administration of the tech bubble when he was the CEO of a company and he also predicted that the Y2K bug in 2000 would not pose a grave threat. His recent comment, “The upcoming 20th presidential election will be the battle between Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo,” received attention by the public. Some snorted at him as he said that at the press conference in Gwangju on Jan. 23 when his approval rating was mere 7 to 8 percent while Ban Ki-moon, Hwang Kyo-ahn, and Ahn Hee-jung were gaining popularity.

The Dong-A Ilbo and Research & Research opinion poll has showed that Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo are in a very tight race within the margin of error if the two candidates contest in a bilateral match. The gap between the two candidates are narrowed within the range of 10 percentage points in the five candidates’ match. Likewise, it appears that Ahn’s prophecy comes true this time again. In his declaration of presidential bid on Mach 19, he said, “Wind of March and rain of April will bloom flowers of May.” The May’s flower means Ahn’s being elected the president of Korea. Let’s wait and see if his last prophecy comes true.