Ruling party`s infighting lead to negative tweets on Park

Infighting in the ruling Saenuri Party has led to negative posts on social networking sites about the party`s presidential candidate Park Geun-hye.

The Dong-A Ilbo found this in an analysis conducted with Medicom and Pulse K, a software program that analyzes social media posts, from Thursday last week to 5 p.m. Wednesday on tweets about Park, Democratic United Party candidate Moon Jae-in and independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo.

Ahn was mentioned in the most tweets with 131,000, followed by Park with 121,500. Given that the number of tweets on Park was 56,000 short of Ahn`s over the Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) holidays from Sept. 28 to Oct. 3, the latest posts on Park on social networking sites deserve attention. Ahn had the largest number of tweets over the holiday period, but Park beat him from Thursday to Saturday last week.

The tweets on Park, however, contained many negative emotional words such as "suspicion," "scout," "corruption" and "resign." This reflects the protests by Ahn Dae-hee, head of the ruling party`s special committee on political reform, on Saenuri`s recruitment of Han Gwang-ok, a former lawmaker of the main opposition Democratic United Party, and certain members demanding the resignation of party chairman Hwang Woo-yeo. With the internal dispute showing signs of easing Tuesday, other tweets said Park is handling the most urgent problem but is indecisive.

Han`s entry into the Park camp attracted more positive tweets than negative. Among retweets that can be classified as public opinion, 57.4 percent were positive and 33 percent negative.

Emotional words on Ahn included "suspicion," "big" and "scout," showing continued demand on Ahn to verify his qualifications and Rep. Song Ho-chang`s bolt from the Democratic United Party to join Ahn. Among tweets on Song, 16.1 percent were positive, 56 percent negative, and 27.9 percent neutral.

Moon had 76,800 tweets mentioning him, the lowest number among the three presidential candidates, but the emotional words used were "peace," "together" and "big." The words used over the Chuseok holidays were similar, which Medicom attributed to his steady efforts to garner support.

ddr@donga.com