[Actually x arrogance] Unification seen with data… Are the results reversed? (feat.19th Presidential Election)

There are only ten days left until the election.

However, it seems that the candidates are still not organized.

It is noisy due to the so-called 'unification' controversy.

The power of the people, who even exposed the 'unification journal', saying that they did enough for unification with Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, the People's Party, who expressed their outright displeasure, saying it was as if they were reading a false report from an investigative agency. .

The Democratic Party seems to have crept into that gap with the idea of ​​a 'unified government'.

Some say "Unification has already crossed the water", and some say "It's not over until it's over".

However, I would like to ask a more fundamental question.

What on earth is unification, and why is it that the politicians and the media are showing so much interest?

Unification, does it really work?

Let's listen to the explanation of SBS data journalism's pride and arrogance.

If you look at the recent SBS "Meta S" approval rating, Candidate Seok-Yeol Yoon took the first place with 41.1%, followed by Candidate Jae-Myung Lee with 39.8% (as of the 27th).

Looking at the graph, the differences between the two candidates overlap within the margin of error (blue-red shades) to the extent that there is little difference.

In other words, the positions of the two candidates can change at any time.

Shall we see our “Meta S” again?

Although candidate Yoon is running for the first place, it is not a situation where you can enjoy the first place with peace of mind because, as explained above, he is still trapped within the margin of error.

In fact, it is safe to say that the current number one is meaningless.

Then each candidate has one option.

That's unification.

This is true for both passports and opposition passports.

That is why Ahn Cheol-soo, who ranked third in the opinion polls, has a high ransom price.

So let's solve the unifying arithmetic, shall we?

Let's calculate it arithmetically.

Candidate Ahn drew a line on the 27th that he would not unify again, but if, like a miracle, Yoon can bring Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo's 8.9% approval rating (as of the 27th) through dramatic unification, it is a simple summation, but the approval rate is 50%. We will be one step closer to winning the presidential election.

But this is just an assumption.

In reality, public opinion is sharply divided into 'should' and 'should not' of unification.

Our data journalism juggernaut team has solved the issue of unification of 'hot potato' these days with the data of the last 19 votes and the comment data of the latest portal news.

What if the 19th presidential election was unified?

the result was reversed

Was there another presidential election in which Ahn Cheol-soo's approval rating drew attention?

It's the 19th presidential election.

Let's go back to the 19th presidential election, which had a similar structure to this three-way structure.

At that time, President Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea was elected with 41.08%, but since the election was held right after the impeachment phase, the election was actually within everyone's prediction range.

In fact, according to a poll just before the election, President Moon was expected to win a landslide victory, but when he opened the lid, more conservative votes than expected came out in support of candidate Hong Jun-pyo of the Liberty Korea Party.

So, the media at the time analyzed the last gathering of the 'Shai Conservatives' as the reason.

Even so, although the percentage of votes was far below that of President Moon, assuming that candidate Hong Jun-pyo and Candidate Ahn Cheol-soo succeeded in unification, the story is different.

Although it is a rough assumption, the combined votes of Hong Jun-pyo (24.03%) and Ahn Cheol-soo (21.41%) at that time are 45.44%, which is 3.26%p more than that of President Moon Jae-in and reverses (when Hong Jun-pyo and Ahn Cheol-soo are unified, the votes of the two candidates are completely It is emphasized once again that they cannot be integrated).

On January 5, Rep. Hong Jun-pyo told National People's Party lawmaker Kwon Eun-hee, who came to greet the New Year, 'Don't think about re-creating the 2017 presidential election situation'.

I expressed my dissatisfaction with the unification once again, but I simulated the vote rate by assuming unification during the 19th presidential election.

In the case of unification, 1,116 (33%) of 3,491 administrative dongs across the country will overturn the 1st place result.

Excluding Yeongnam, which is a conservative region, the reverse phenomenon was evident on the map in Chungbuk, Gyeonggi, and Gangwon, including Chungnam. The unification candidate by the ratio flipped.

On the other hand, there are places where unification is not effective.

Jeonbuk 0%, Gwangju 1.05%, and Jeonnam 12.45%, represented by Honam, had no effect of unification.

In fact, the results showed that Moon Jae-in could not win in most neighborhoods across the country if unification had been achieved except for the Honam region.

In other words, looking back at the elections at the time of the 19th in the current state of regret for the unification of conservatives, the opposition party still has a strong thirst for Candidate Ahn.

If the unification fails again this time and the presidential race is held in a three-way structure, it will be a point of view to watch how it will affect Candidate Yoon.

After analyzing the public sentiment on 'Unification'...

Conservatives are cool?

However, if you look at the attitudes of progressives and conservatives toward unification, and the comment data, there are some differences.

SBS Data Journalism Team’s arbitration team secured 8,000 users from Naver and Daum portals together with Underscore, a data analysis company, and then used a deep learning-based political orientation classification algorithm to extract more than 3,700 users with certain political orientations every day. I'm tracking their comments.

It is effective for observing public opinion in comments independent of polls.

So, we analyzed the public opinion of online comments using a sample of 780,000 articles related to 'Ahn Cheol-soo', the keyword of this analysis.

Looking at the results of the analysis, the most striking thing is 'malicious comments'.

Among them, aggression against Ahn Cheol-soo by conservatives increased by 13% this year compared to last year.

Last year, candidate Ahn Cheol-soo's approval rating did not even make it into the top three and was far from the interest of conservative supporters.

In fact, if you look closely at the approval rating patterns of the two candidates, Cheol-soo Ahn and Seok-yeol Yoon, the approval ratings of the two candidates are linked.

Of course, to conservative supporters, Ahn would have had to look like a thorn in the eye.

It is also noteworthy that candidate Ahn's aggression surged after an official press conference that he would no longer unify.

In fact, if you look at the comments, you can easily find comments that contain primary criticism, such as "If Lee Jae-myung is elected, you are the culprit" and "Withdraw."

If Ahn Cheol-soo's ransom rises...

The number of comments on the progressive side also rises?

Progressives have a slightly different reaction.

Liberal supporters continued to have fewer comments and malicious comments than conservative supporters.

Although liberals' online commenting is not always as active as relatively conservative, there are certain times when they nevertheless outnumber conservatives' comments.

It appears that there is some correlation with the actions of candidate Ahn Cheol-soo.

In early January, whenever candidate Ahn's election campaign, such as an increase in approval rating, proposal for unification, or withdrawal, etc., received media attention or there was a discussion about unification, the number of comments by progressive supporters overwhelmingly exceeds the number of comments by conservatives.

Contrary to popular belief, this can be seen as a sign that Ahn's actions are more of a concern to Democratic supporters, at least online, than to the conservatives.

After February, this trend is more pronounced.

Since Candidate Ahn officially proposed unification to Candidate Yoon on the 13th, the number of comments from both camps has skyrocketed.

This peaked immediately after candidate Yoon Seok-yeol revealed the unification process on the 27th.

It is analyzed that the number of malicious comments did not increase as much as the number of comments increased along with the increase in the number of malicious comments mentioned above.

In other words, it can be seen that the progressive supporters have a weak aggression toward Ahn, but their 'interest' is reflected in the number of comments.

Now that you've seen 'data', let's take a look at history together.

In the modern political history of Korea, unification has generally led to successful results.

The 13th presidential election in 1987, the first presidential election since democratization, is recorded as the first election in which the word 'unification' was used.

In the passport, Roh Tae-woo of the Democratic Justice Party, Kim Young-sam of the Unification Democratic Party, Kim Dae-jung of the Peace Democratic Party, and Kim Jong-pil of the New Democratic Republican Party were running from the opposition. There was a strong demand to do so.

Poster at the time of the 13th presidential election (Source: Election Commission Election Archives)

However, unification failed.

In the end, Candidate Roh Tae-woo was elected president.

In January 1990, Roh Tae-woo's Democratic Justice Party, Kim Young-sam's Unification Democratic Party, and Kim Jong-pil's New Democratic Republican Party were legitimate.

It is a 'three-party union' that has had a tremendous impact on the Korean political landscape.

In the 14th presidential election that took place two years later, as you know, then candidate Kim Young-sam wins.

January 1990, press conference to announce the unity of the three parties

The 15th presidential election in 1997.

Kim Dae-jung, who felt the importance of unification in the last two elections, succeeded in forming a DJP alliance with then-candidate Kim Jong-pil.

It was only a month before the election.

The DJP Alliance is often mentioned as a representative example of successful unification in the Korean presidential election.

Candidate Dae-jung Kim, who gained momentum from the DJP Alliance, was elected president by defeating then-GNP candidate Lee Hoi-chang.

In November 1996, signing the DJP Alliance Agreement (Source: Kim Dae-jung Library)

In the 16th presidential election, Roh Moo-hyun of the Millennium Democratic Party was lagging behind candidates Lee Hoi-chang and Chung Mong-joon.

The interest was so great that the debate about the unification of then-candidates Roh Moo-hyun and Jung Mong-joon was broadcast live on TV.

A unified opinion poll was conducted, and in the end, the unification was achieved centered on candidate Roh Moo-hyun.

After that, there was pain, such as withdrawn support from candidate Chung Mong-joon right before the election, but candidate Roh Moo-hyun defeated Lee Hoi-chang and was elected president.

In November 2002, discussion on unification with then-candidates Roh Moo-hyun and Chung Mong-joon

The 18th presidential election in 2012 remains an unsuccessful example of unification.

The candidates at the time Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo eventually unified them around candidate Moon Jae-in, but their appearance was rather strange.

This is because unification was achieved in such a way that candidate Ahn Cheol-soo resigned during negotiations because they could not find a point of agreement.

The people voted for Park Geun-hye.

Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo at the time

Except for the 18th presidential election, unification led to victory in most presidential elections.

However, it is also true that the aftertaste is not pleasant when you see this kind of consolidation of political circles.

In fact, unification has a lot of meaning in 'opposing' the possibility of winning the opponent's election, but it is also a negotiation about how to divide power, in other words, how to allocate resources when you come to power.

Naturally, under the negotiating table, there is a high possibility of debate over interests such as the right to nominate in the next election and the right to appoint important government positions, and voters are naturally marginalized.

The unification would be saying that it is thoroughly intertwined with the interests of political providers.

From the unification tug of war between Candidates Yoon Seok-yeol and Ahn Cheol-soo, to the love call from Lee Jae-myung, who comes in between them, it is also regrettable that the series of processes that are currently taking place may repeat the insufficiency of modern Korean politics.

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