Goh Kun Launches Home Page


By Seo Dong-shin
Staff Reporter

Former Prime Minister Goh Kun launched a home page on a popular Web service on Monday, heightening speculation he may soon officially announce his bid for the presidential election in 2007.

Presidential hopefuls here maintain Internet home pages as a way of effectively expressing themselves and strengthening communication with Internet users, a section of the public that strongly influences public opinion.


An Internet home page (cyworld.nate.com/letsgo) launched by former Prime Minister Goh Kun features his writings and a number of photos, including ones taken during his visit to an orphanage, Samdong Boys’ Town, and a meeting with students of Ewha Womans University on Children’s Day, May 5.

Along with popular blog services including www.naver.com, South Korean politicians also frequent www.cyworld.nate.com, which is where the 67-year-old Goh chose to open his trendy home page (cyworld.nate.com/letsgo).

Park Geun-hye, chairwoman of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), also has a hugely popular home page there, (cyworld.nate.com/ghism), which receives thousands of visitors daily and recorded a total of 2.7 million views as of Monday.

Goh is currently the most viable candidate for the next presidential election, according to various opinion polls conducted by local media or research institutions.

Although he has yet to make public an intention to run for the presidency, the surveys have invariably shown that the popularity of Goh, a former mayor of Seoul, surpasses those of other presidential hopefuls including GNP chairwoman Park and possible candidates of the ruling Uri Party such as incumbent Cabinet ministers Chung Dong-young and Kim Geun-tae.

In a February survey by The Korea Times this year, for example, Goh topped the public’s list for presidential candidates with a 28.3 percent approval rating, leaving Park with 10.4 percent and incumbent Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak of the GNP with 10.3 percent far behind.

Goh gained popularity as a competent career bureaucrat while serving twice as Seoul mayor between 1988 and 1990 and between 1998 and 2002.

Public confidence in him also grew when he served as the nation’s prime minister, including the period during which the National Assembly impeached President Roh Moo-hyun and stalled his presidency for two months last year.

One year after stepping down from the premiership, the man of few words recently began to engage himself in a series of lectures and overseas trips, which observers interpret as a warm-up before entering the presidential race.

Goh gave a speech in a forum at Harvard University in the United States last February, and plans to deliver a keynote speech in an economic forum in Beijing, China next month.

In his first posting on the ``diary’’ section of his home page yesterday, Goh quoted ``Youth’’ from Samuel Ullman, which reads, ``Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a body of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.’’

Goh wrote that the poetry came across his mind while building his home page on the Internet.

Internet users soon filled the reply board with postings such as ``you are the real youth’’ and ``you’re so cool, we expect you to become our president.’’

But it remains doubtful as to whether Goh really made his home page all by himself, observers say. For example, the background music for the site, ``Take me to your heart’’ by Michael Learns to Rock or ``Falling in Love Again’’ by Bobby Kim is somewhat unlike the career administrator, they say.

saltwall@koreatimes.co.kr