Former Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo said on the 3rd, 'A diseased forest should be planted with only healthy trees and burned.'
According to the exit poll results from the three broadcasting companies MBC, KBS, and SBS on the same day, candidate Lee Jae-myung surpassed the majority with 51.7% in the national tally, candidate Kim Moon-soo of the People Power Party had 39.3%, and candidate Lee Jun-seok of the Reform Party recorded 7.7% respectively.
Hong, the former mayor, remarked similarly on Facebook about an hour after the exit poll was announced, stating, 'If it is left unattended, the entire mountain becomes diseased.'
He added, 'It was a party impeached twice, but since the opponent was candidate Lee Jae-myung, it was a game we could have easily won, but it turned out to be unfortunate,' and 'It should have been dismantled during Park Geun-hye's impeachment and restructured anew.'
Furthermore, he criticized, 'After barely reviving it, various odds and ends just disrupted things for three years, and once again, it ended up like this.'