There were three paths ahead of Ahn Cheol-soo, the presidential candidate of the People's Party (hereinafter referred to as abbreviation).
Completion of the presidential election and the unification of the people's strength with the presidential candidates and with the Democratic presidential candidates.
Among those on the People's Power side, there were many observations that Ahn Cheol-soo would unite with the People's Power presidential candidate (hereafter omitted).
The reason was this.
At the end of January and the beginning of February, candidate Ahn Cheol-soo's approval rating started to fall below 10% in opinion polls.
Even if he completes the presidential election, it is difficult to expect to win the election, and there is a high possibility that he will not be reimbursed for the cost of the election.
People from the People's Power predicted that completing the presidential election would not be an option for Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo because of the (half of the election expenses if more than 10% of the votes were obtained in the presidential election, and the entire election expenses are reimbursed if more than 15% of the votes were obtained).
So, what is the possibility of unity (or solidarity) with the Democratic presidential candidate?
If candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, who had put forward 'replacement of government' as his vote, would unify him with the Democratic presidential candidate, his political justification would be lost.
Even if candidate Ahn Cheol-soo wins the presidential election as a unified candidate for the Democratic Party, it is difficult to guarantee his political life because he has lost his political cause.
Therefore, people from the People's Power predicted that unification with the Democratic presidential candidate would not be in Ahn Cheol-soo's head.
After Wanju and the Democratic Party's presidential candidate are removed, all that remains is the unification with the People's Power presidential candidate.
It wasn't just a prediction as what was left after eliminating other options.
Because it is a consensus for the value of 'regime change', if the candidate wins the presidential election by uniting as a candidate for the power of the people, Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo may take the spoils.
Even if he loses the presidential election, Ahn can obtain a political justification that he did his best for regime change.
The reason why people on the People's Power side predicted that Ahn Cheol-soo would unite with the People's Power presidential candidate was roughly as follows.
It was based on political rationality and was largely flawless inference.
However, there was something that those who predicted this way overlooked or underestimated.
Negotiation is a game with an opponent, and the opponent is a person, not a machine.
Why decisions outside of rationality occur
A professional sport that money explains and proves everything.
However, it often happens that they give up a higher salary and choose another club.
And this happens more often with the so-called high-ranking players.
Taking a professional baseball pitcher as an example, rather than a higher salary, how much support can be received from another line, and whether the pitcher is friendly to the pitcher, can be a variable that causes people to give up a higher salary.
The decision may vary depending on whether this is the last free agent (free agent) or whether there are more free agent opportunities.
If this is the last free agent, it is reasonable to choose a club that pays a higher salary in terms of money, but if there is one more chance for a free agent, choose a club that can get good results even with a small salary and have another chance in the next free agent It may be more reasonable to peek at
The length of the contract can also be a variable.
However, there are cases in which a team with a lower salary is selected even though the non-monetary variables are similar.
A word often heard in this case is 'self-esteem'.
Instead of tedious negotiations, it is often explained that the player's request was accepted at the first negotiating table, or that the club's negotiating attitude seemed to genuinely respect the player's values.
The purpose is that the club has built up the pride of the players.
What is important to Ahn Cheol-soo in negotiations?
In early January of this year, when candidate Ahn Cheol-soo's approval rating was close to 15% in an opinion poll.
Around Candidate Yun Seok-yeol's camp, there were rumors that if he and Ahn Cheol-soo were unified, he would have to concede everything, including the right to nominate in local elections, to become unified as candidate Yoon.
(Unification through this kind of agreement may be subject to the 'candidate bribery crime', so 'common government' or 'common values' are inevitably presented as the cause of unification for any unification.
) People who knew Ahn Cheol-soo well responded, 'It's a story they don't know too much about Ahn Cheol-soo'
.
It was said that what Ahn Cheol-soo emphasized was not the right to nominate in local elections or the prime minister, but other values, but other values
converged into the word 'pride'.
Some predicted that the negotiation process with Candidate Ahn would determine the success or failure of the negotiations
.
As the discussion progressed, it was expected that candidate Ahn would tend to want to lead the discussion or control the situation, and these were also opinions connected with 'self-esteem'.
People on the People's Power side who had predicted that candidate Ahn Cheol-soo would be unified with the People's Power presidential candidate implicitly laid a single premise.
The assumption is that if unification is achieved, another candidate must yield a single candidate to a candidate who is ahead in the current opinion poll approval rate, or that the candidate with a high current opinion poll approval rate will of course become the single candidate.
In other words, it was assumed that candidate Ahn Cheol-soo would concede his candidacy if anyone tried to unify him.
This implicit premise seems to have become a basic stumbling block in negotiations with Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, who values 'self-esteem'.
What was the reason for Ahn Cheol-soo's official proposal to unify the opposition candidates?
People who say they have negotiated with Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo often complain that it is difficult to understand Ahn's intentions.
If negotiation is defined as a process in which people with different views narrow down their differences, the most basic and important thing for negotiation is to understand what the other party is thinking.
That thought may be the other person's basic thoughts, or it may be the other person's reaction to the options I'm suggesting.
However, those who said they had negotiated with Ahn Cheol-soo (the side) often complained of difficulties in both of them.
It was said that this is the reason why negotiations that were supposed to go well sometimes run into difficulties at the last minute.
February 13, the first day of registration for the presidential election.
Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo proposed the unification of opposition candidates to People's Power candidate Yoon Seok-yeol.
It is not clear whether Candidate Ahn opened the door to unification, or whether the inertia of the politicians and the media that the unification of the candidates would proceed naturally in a situation where the approval rates of the 1st and 2nd presidential candidates in public opinion polls were low, led to the unification. In the end, the door to unification of the opposition was officially opened.
Candidate Ahn's suggestion made two things clear.
The possibility of unification with the Democratic presidential candidate was eliminated, and Ahn's basic idea of unification was confirmed.
Candidate Ahn made it clear that he had a different opinion than those of the People's Power who wanted concessions while proposing unification through an opinion poll.
It was a natural decision by Ahn Cheol-soo, who values self-esteem, to propose a discussion of unification on an equal footing.
As the presidential candidate himself made the proposal, Ahn's request that the presidential candidate Yoon Seok-yeol directly respond to the proposal can also be understood if we consider the word 'pride' as the center.
However, inside the People's Power, interpretations began to emerge that Ahn Cheol-soo's proposal was not the true intention.
(Actually, 'expectation' may be more appropriate than interpretation) If a single candidate is determined through a public opinion poll, the debt to Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo will disappear because when candidate Yoon Seok-yeol wins, it is a victory by competition. There was an expectation based on political rationality that a single candidate would be decided through the
Also, there was a mixed expectation that candidate Ahn would not have sincerely asked to select a single candidate through a public opinion poll despite the difference in the approval ratings of the opinion polls by nearly four or five times.
However, these expectations neglected Ahn Cheol-soo's personal tendency to value 'self-esteem'.
DJP Alliance, whose premise was 'promotion of constitutional reform of the cabinet system'
After that, the People's Power side decided that 'unification of public opinion polls would not be the true intention', and discussions began in earnest about what conditions to present for the concession.
Some ideas came up that could guarantee the nomination of the Gyeonggi governor in the upcoming local election or concede a certain part of the nomination for the local election.
An official from Candidate Yoon Seok-yeol's side also said, "Candidate Yoon Seok-yeol is ready to concede or consider Ahn Cheol-soo a lot, except for polls."
The unification method such as the DJP (Kim Dae-jung + Kim Jong-pil) alliance in 1997 was also intensively discussed.
However, the discussion of the DJP alliance on the People's Power side only talks about the place, and the story about the most basic value of the DJP alliance is often omitted or overlooked.
The DJP coalition eventually became a ballot, but the premise of the alliance between the two powers was that Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-pil agreed to promote the 'constitutional reform of the cabinet system'.
However, the People's Power side did not discuss these common values, but only talked about what position and what conditions it could be given.
Perhaps, the measures that can build candidate Ahn's self-esteem and the measures that can bring the negotiation to success have been overlooked.
Between being raised so that the idea of the conditions, yunseokyeol - Ahn was no official contact between the two sides.
Maybe official contacts in a unified discussion may be possible but only in the last step, Ahn, who requested direct answer yunseokyeol candidate positions of the candidates were discussed could be proud developments spoilage.
Informal contacts between the two sides of the dwaetneunde progress, it seems, not moving receives a delegation of the candidates on both sides.
And unified deny the need or do not like that story derogatory political journey over the candidates came from the strength of the people side.
Reasons for deciding the 20th as the official execution date of negotiations
On the side of the People's Power, it was observed that the full-scale movement related to the unification of candidates and furthermore, the decision of a large frame could be carried out yesterday (20th), one day before the first court debate.
The reason is that if the candidates face off in a courtroom debate that is being held near the election, it is highly likely that they will sound harsh to each other, which could damage the unification discussion.
It seems that there was also the expectation that if Ahn concedes the candidacy, he will make a decision on the 20th and not attend the debate.
The fact that candidate Yoon Seok-yeol contacted Ahn Cheol-soo directly by phone yesterday morning may reflect this series of expectations.
However, the result was contrary to the expectations or expectations of the people's power.
Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo declared the completion of the presidential election.
The decision of whether he actively declared the completion of the presidential election or had no choice but to pick up the option to complete the presidential election may differ depending on the person, but Ahn's decision made it virtually difficult to unify the opposition candidates. .
Candidate Ahn did not hide that yesterday, by using harsher expressions than usual, he had hurt his pride and that that was one of the reasons for his decision.
Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo has also forgotten the nature of negotiations.
The failure of the unification negotiations seems to have had a great effect on the fact that the people's powers overlooked the personal tendency of Ahn Cheol-soo.
Since the People's Party is in fact a 'one-man Ahn's party', it was necessary to understand Ahn's individual more.
Of course, given that the negotiation is a game where there is an opponent, the responsibility for the breakdown of the negotiation should be held equally on Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo.
It is an undeniable reality that candidate Ahn Cheol-soo's approval rating in a multilateral confrontation poll is one-fourth to one-fifth that of Yoon Seok-yeol.
In Korea, where there is no runoff voting system, the reality of the presidential election is a multilateral confrontation.
However, based on the results of a hypothetical opinion poll that sometimes shows an advantage over Candidate Yoon in the unification survey of the opposition candidates, may Ahn insist on unification based on the opinion poll only?
He said that he was holding a non-cash bill in his hand and saying that he would be paid more than cash.
The same is true of his adherence to the demand that candidate Yoon Seok-yeol must answer himself, since he made the proposal.
In the unification negotiations, he took the initiative, and it seemed as if he was going to force Yoon to take the lead.
It can be interpreted that there was no consideration for the negotiator in order to protect his pride, and this may have been an obstacle to the development of the situation and the conclusion of the negotiation that Ahn wanted.
History does it rate a unified negotiations
The Democrats seem to be managing their facial expressions in the breakdown of the opposition candidate unification negotiations.
The reason is that it would be advantageous for the ruling party to go to a four-way showdown rather than unite candidate Yoon Seok-yeol and Ahn Cheol-soo because the votes of Yun Seok-yeol and Ahn Cheol-soo would be dispersed.
However, it is unclear whether the breakdown of the unification negotiations will have a favorable outcome for the ruling party.
In the meantime, candidate Ahn Cheol-soo's approval ratings in opinion polls seemed like a dam to Lee Jae-myung-Yun Seok-yeol's approval ratings.
There must be an independent support group, but it also had a significant meaning as a female set of the approval ratings of other presidential candidates.
In particular, the recent trend in which candidate Yoon Seok-yeol and Ahn Cheol-soo's approval ratings have moved in opposite directions has been interpreted to mean that those who wish for a regime change but were disappointed by Yoon went to Ahn Cheol-soo and returned to Yoon again.
In this respect, Ahn's completion of the presidential election is a clear threat from the perspective of Candidate Yoon in that some of his supporters can go to Candidate Ahn at any time depending on Candidate Yoon's steps.
However, the approval rating of candidate Ahn Cheol-soo seems to include the meaning as a complement of candidate Lee Jae-myung's approval rating.
People who support President Moon Jae-in but not Candidate Jae-myung Lee, and people who have great antipathy towards Candidate Seok-yeol Yoon but who do not support Candidate Jae-myung Lee may come to Ahn Cheol-soo.
Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo's completion in this presidential election, which is expected to mobilize the camps, could become a stumbling block for candidate Lee Jae-myung's support group to gather.
This is why the Democratic Party cannot just laugh at Ahn's decision to finish the race.
The People's Power side is of the view that the unification discussion is not over until it is over.
It is extremely expected that the fire of unification did not go out until one day before the voting day.
However, in fact, it seems that the debate on unification of the opposition candidates is over.
How will history evaluate the recent debate on unification of opposition candidates?
And how will you be evaluated by those involved in the discussion?
Right or wrong, history is written by the victors.
Ultimately, the election results will judge the present, and there are 16 days left until the election.