Alex Jensen: It is Wednesday, December 1^st, you’re listening to Koreabizcast with the KBLA on this first of a new month, and just one month away from a new year and changes are in the air because we do have a certain presidential election coming up in the first quarter of 2022. We’re gonna have the opportunity today to get an update from our special issues reporter Kyungmi, Choi on what we need to know about going into that big nationwide vote as well as then speaking with Rod Rothwell, KBLA Co-Chair on some interesting developments affecting both the KBLA and this very platform, if you want to get in touch with us just search KBLA via LinkedIn.

Alex Jensen: So as promised, we have Kyungmi standing by. Thank you very much for taking the time.

Choi Kyungmi: Well, thank you for having me.

Alex Jensen: Absolute pleasure, Kyungmi, so a number of opinion polls on this 20th presidential race have come out this week with Monday marking 100 days until election day.

Choi Kyungmi: Right, so public opinion at the 100-day mark is considered to be an important indicator. So, for example, the probability of opinion polls predicting the election outcome 100 days before the race day is 85.7%. and this is according to an analysis of data from Gallup Korea’s polls of presidential elections from 1987 to 2017. But experts say that for the upcoming election, it’s too early to predict the outcome at this point are based on the polls as they’ve been showing different results and things could always be reversed at the last minute as well. And for surveys were released around the time of this 100-day mark and candidates from the main rival parties. They’re the ruling Democratic Party Lee Jae-myung and the main opposition People Power Party Yoon Seok-youl, they were found to be neck and neck within the margin of error in most of them. But there was won where Yoon was found to be well ahead of Lee with a considerable margin.

Alex Jensen: Let’s take a closer look at these polls. Can you go through the details for us?

Choi Kyungmi: Sure. So, let’s start with one that showed Yoon to be leading by a wide margin. According to a survey by REALMETER conducted from last Monday to Friday at the request of OhmyNews and release this Monday, Yoon received 46.3% Leading by 9.4 percentage points. Well Lee received 36.9% in a hypothetical race, and minor opposition People’s Party Ahn Cheol-soo was third with 3.7% and Sim Sang-jung of the progressive Justice Party was next with 3.3% and the survey was conducted on 3,023 adults aged 18 and older nationwide with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points and a 95% confidence level. And the other three showed that it was a close fight between all the two candidates. In a survey released by the Korea Society Opinion Institute or KSOI on Monday, Yoon Seok-youl led by 2.8 percentage points over Lee Jae-myung receiving 41.8% to 39% and 1,009 adults took part in the survey from last Friday and Saturday, and how to confidence level of 95% and plus minus 3.1 percentage points margin of error. And when asked which candidate is likely to win regardless of who they support, 46.2% of the respondents picked Yoon leading slightly to Lee Jae-myung who had a 43% and then another poll conducted by EMBRAIN PUBLIC commissioned by local daily JoongAng Ilbo released on Sunday, Yoon and Lee were neck and neck and a potential multi candidate race. So, Yoon received 38.9% of support compared to 36.1% for Lee, again leading all by 2.8 percentage points. And this poll was conducted on 1,020 adults aged 18 and older and had a confidence level of 95% with a margin of error of plus minus 3.1 percentage points. And finally, a poll conducted by Kstat at the request of the local newspaper Hankyoreh, it asked 1,027 voters who they regarded as the most suitable candidate in the presidential election from last Thursday to Friday, and Yoon Seok-youl was found to be in the lead over Lee Jae-myung within the margin of error with 36.1% to 34.4%. And the minor opposition Justice Party Sim Sang-jung came third with 5.7% and Ahn Cheol-soo of People’s Party was next with 4.3% and 13.7% responded that they have no preference. And this survey had a confidence level of 95% with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Alex Jensen: Thank you for all the details that we asked for Kyungmi and when we see different results, sometimes very different results. Why do we think that is?

Choi Kyungmi: So, experts analyze that this is due to the different sampling methods used by different pollsters. Of course, there’s other factors as well, but this could be one of them and also ways in which the surveys themselves are conducted such as what time of the day and whether they’re conducted through phone interviews or automatic response system or ARS. So, for example, for the four surveys that we just looked at KSOI survey used ARS on virtual mobile phone numbers provided by the National Election Commission. EMBRAIN PUBLIC poll was conducted through telephone interviews are using both landline and mobile phones. And then REALMETER survey was conducted through telephone interviews as well as using ARS on mobile phones and landlines. And then Kstat a survey was conducted through cell phone interviews using virtual numbers. And using landlines could raise the chance of more conservatives taking part in the survey and conducting during the daytime as opposed to the evening could mean that those who have jobs that make it difficult for them to answer phones at work weren’t sampled.

Alex Jensen: Well, experts also seem to agree that this current race is hard to predict as you suggested, so what are some key factors that may affect what happens?

Choi Kyungmi: So, both candidates from the main rival parties are facing or prosecutorial probes. So, for the DP’s, Lee Jae-myung involves a land development scandal in Daejang-dong of Seongnam city and allegations that him and his aides unlawfully provided favors to the company that led this development project to gain profits when he served as the city’s mayor and for the PPP’s Yoon Seok-youl over power abuse allegations of ordering the PPP’s predecessor Liberty Korea party to file a complaint against progovernment figures ahead of last year’s general election when he was serving as Prosecutor General. And with the leading candidates each involved in these scandals, it appears that the public is disappointed at them, which could also explain why neither of the two are taking a noticeable lead. And as it looks unlikely for candidates from minor parties to enjoy much support. It will be interesting to see whether they join forces with the leading contenders.

Alex Jensen: Another key issue Kyungmi, how successful the two candidates are in forming respective election committees and it looks like they’re both the two leading ones facing challenges in this process?

Choi Kyungmi: Right, so as for the ruling party’s candidate, or Lee Jae-myung, he is facing a major hurdle in achieving unity within the DP on what the party’s been referring to as the one team spirit. And this is us former Prime Minister and his primary rival, Lee Nak-yon hasn’t come out fully supporting him yet. And Lee Nak-yon has a large support base in the Honam region. This is Gwangju and the Jeolla provinces, and it’s also the home turf for the Liberal Democratic Party. And it’s typically expected that a ruling party candidate or would receive overwhelming support from the region. But that actually hasn’t been the case for Lee Jae-myung so far, and some experts analyzed that Lee Nak-yon’s full support for the candidate will be crucial, or for Lee Jae-myung to secure votes from the Honam region. And the candidate returned actually from a four-day trip to the area on Monday during which he visited Lee Nak-yon’s hometown and Yeonggwang of South Jeolla province. And he referred to the former Prime Minister as Yeonggwang’s political bigwig and apologize for failing to meet the expectations of the people of Honam, and this was apparently in a move to unify his party.

Alex Jensen: The main opposition candidate is also struggling with the recruitment for his election committee as he also implied?

Choi Kyungmi: Right, so Yoon had officially announced last Monday that he’s recruiting the so-called 3 Kim’s referring to three political heavyweights are named Kim or they are former head of the PPP’s Emergency Committee Kim Chong-in, former interim Head of the PPP predecessor Liberty Korea Party, Kim Byong-joon and former head of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy Kim Han-gil, and Kim Chong-in was supposed to be the one top leader overseeing Yoon’s campaigns and Kim Byong-joo  was appointed all the Joint Standing chairman for the election committee and Kim Han-gil is heading or new era preparation committee, which is a separate organization under this election committee. But just a day after this announcement, Kim Chong-in came out saying that he hasn’t made a final decision. And he actually still hasn’t accepted the invitation with more than a week having passed by, and an ongoing internal conflict between Yoon and his party’s Chairman, Lee Jun-seok could also pose challenges in the committee’s formation. The two actually started to clash even before Yoon joined the party, but it intensified after Yoon pushed ahead with the recruitment of several figures that are his close supporters despite Lee opposition. And the tour also at odds over Kim Chong-in’s recruitment, which was strongly pushed by Lee. So, our chairman Lee actually serves as the other joint standing chairman for the election committee. And there are speculations that he may resign from this post.

Alex Jensen: Kyungmi, Choi. Thank you very much for the overview.

Choi Kyungmi: Thank you for having me, Alex.

Alex Jensen: So, from that discussion about the Presidential election to our KBLA, Co-Chair Rod Rothwell who earned the position without a nationwide vote. But you would have been elected anyway, wouldn’t you, Rod?

Rod Rothwell: Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Alex Jensen: We’re going to talk a bit about KBLA developments and how that ties in with our Koreabizcast plans and so on. But just a quick word on this election business is looking really tight, isn’t it?

Rod Rothwell: Really is looking really tight. I’m looking right now at a JoongAng Ilbo article and also, Hankyoreh article and both of them are saying it’s well within the margin of error. So, I guess that means it’s really well within the margin of error.

Alex Jensen: Yeah, as we heard from Kyungmi, there are other polls that will place the gap bigger, but I just feel after Brexit, President Trump’s victory in the US, we’ve seen so many times how early polls cannot be relied upon, even exit poll data can be pretty dodgy, can’t it?

Rod Rothwell: Yeah, definitely, definitely. We had a large upset in the last Australian election. And then as you mentioned, Brexit and Trump, I think they both proved the gap between what people will admit to over the phone and then what they will do in the privacy of the voting booth.

Alex Jensen: As well as the sample sizes maybe you’re speaking to 1,000 people or barely that figure. It really factors in where you’re speaking to them which region, they’re in.

Rod Rothwell: And the technology you’re using, surely.

Alex Jensen: I know that they’re reaching out to me in my mobile regularly with these recorded messages to try to get me to vote even though I’m not able to vote in this presidential election. But there do seem to be better ways of handling both the PR side and the polling side. But the thing about this election is that regardless of parties, we want to see a candidate win who’s going to be productive and positive and dealing with innovation and a lot of the areas that businesses have been calling for, Rod. And that is a shared goal with the KBLA.

Rod Rothwell: It really is, you know, I guess my dream candidate would be something like an Andrew Yang figure, somebody who sees the challenges of the 21st century, coming towards Korea and says, Look, I’m not really left or right. I’m about solving problems. And I don’t see either Yoon or Lee being that kind of people, like Lee’s had that small sort of toe dipping investment in UBI. But really, what was it $1,000 a year? That’s not really a UBI, Is it? It’s more like a tax credit. And we’re going to be facing some big technological issues within the next, I’d say 10 years. And if I was Korean, that would be the candidate, I’d be voting for the one who says, Look, we have to get ahead of them. The demographics of the aging society, we have to talk about encouraging small businesses properly not this grant system we have, and do we say the word immigration, Alex?

Alex Jensen: Well, I think we’re going to get a good close up. Look at all the policies nearer the time which just passed this 100-day mark with the candidate still neck and neck. For me, I don’t want to get into a position where I’m trying to influence our listeners to go one way or the other. But I’ll tell you from personal experience that the conservative side in Korea has often been a lot more foreigner friendly since I’ve been here. And you know, I personally experienced some of the negative policies of the of the left side. It’s not exclusively the case. But it is a funny nuance about Korean politics that you don’t necessarily associate with conservatives and liberals in other countries.

Rod Rothwell: It is interesting that progressive doesn’t mean, doesn’t always mean global, doesn’t it? It is probably the one of the few countries in the world where progressive party isn’t the party of globalization.

Alex Jensen: Indeed, but as I said, we’ll have more time to discuss a lot of the ins and outs of the policies as we get closer and as they become a bit clearer as well, because these early promises have a way of fading when they’re trying to get involved in the mudslinging at this stage. And indeed, mudslinging also tends to dominate, and legal cases and all the rest of it. Rod, I do want to steer us back to the KBLA though, without further ado, because you’ve got some interesting things going on or we’ve got some interesting things going on. But you’ve specifically been working on them.

Rod Rothwell: Yeah, so this is the 47th episode of the biz cast and were amazing. We’ve been amazed with the community we’ve built in these words have been past three and a half months. And the new kind of community, we’ve built has been really exciting. And so, what we’re going to do is link the Koreabizcast community to the KBLA community. And so, from this Monday, we’ll be offering memberships in the KBLA. And we’ll be offering a personal membership and a corporate membership. And also, we’ll be offering people sponsorship opportunities as well. And what we’re looking to do with this is gather people who regularly want to contribute to the Koreabizcast, because I have a great story to tell. And I think that this can be the beginning of a new way of networking, and a new way of community building.

Alex Jensen: That was our goal from the start. And it’s been nice to see the 1000s of downloads build up, we can, I’m sure, reach a higher number of daily downloads is our goal because it does take time with any new media project, you start counting single figures, you get into double figures, you get into triple figures, and you’ve got this word-of-mouth thing going on. But have you been pleasantly surprised by where we’re at already?

Rod Rothwell: Yeah, yeah, I know that we the first time we had a sponsor meeting, we talked about 2,000 people by Christmas. And, you know, we’re about to smash past 3,000 on December one. So yeah, 100% just blown away by the response there. I think, you know, for the next 3,000 or the next 10,000. What I’m seeing to what I’m really seeing is like a convergence of ideas. You know, Thomas Sommer came on, was it two weeks ago, and he talked about understanding BTS better. And I think that’s really key now, because over the last week or so, you’ve had some really great conversations about cryptocurrency and NFTs, and how the entertainment companies are now rolling all three of these projects, the K-pop project, the NFT project, and the crypto project all together. So, as we move forward, I really believe that KBLA and Koreabizcast can become a place where we bring these different aspects of Korean business together and look at them from a like a bit of a helicopter view, because we’ve proven to everybody that we have the right people coming on to look at the real behind the headline discussion points about all these kinds of industries.

Alex Jensen: Yeah, I’ve said before as well, I’m very happy to hear ideas from other people, you can email us info@kbla.net, if anyone’s listening now, and they’ve got something that they would like to get out of this experience, because I know that we still have a lot of room to expand in the future and to continue to evolve and develop right now where we’re trying to cover a number of bases every week. And we’re doing that Monday to Friday, people thought we were crazy when we started. And we’re still going, and I feel that rather than scaling back I’m looking to expand further in the future. So, we’d love to hear more ideas on what people would like, what’s maybe missing from their morning routine or whenever they like to listen. So, if that’s you listening right now, please get in touch info@kbla.net. Rod, I think another big move for us recently was getting on Apple because Apple podcast is a platform a lot of people use. I know I don’t, I know you don’t because we’re both in the Android world. But that was one bit of feedback that we’ve acted upon.

Rod Rothwell: Yeah, and I think that’s one of the great things that we’ve because we’re a little bit more casual, because we’re a little bit more approachable. People can come up to us and they have come up to us. And they’ve given direct feedback. I can count at least five different times and say, Hey, guys, what about trying this? What about trying that? and we have an almost always it’s resonated. And yes, it took us a little while to get up on Apple podcasts. Anybody who’s looking, anybody who’s listening from Apple if you could please simplify their process. We’d be very grateful. But yeah, we are on now. Google podcasts, Apple podcasts, Amazon podcasts or Amazon music. We’re also on SoundCloud, and podcast edit as well as obviously, Podbean for those people who don’t mind and download across a wide range of channels.

Alex Jensen: Their podcast addict is the one I’ve been using for years before I got on board with.

Rod Rothwell: Me too, Alex. Yeah, I love it.

Alex Jensen: And I think there’s a lot of independent ones that the gray whether you’re an Apple user or not, but if people are Apple podcasts, it’s, it’s there now which is wonderful. And I think in the future, you know, the big one for us maybe to transition to road is YouTube, but we’re still taking tentative steps. direction, because it’s a tech leap as well to introduce that video element.

Rod Rothwell: It is a massive tech leap. And we will get there, we will get there with we’ve got two more sponsors on the horizon. And they will help us get there. We’re also getting a lot of people offering us technology help which I’m really, really grateful for. We’ve also had people offering us design help. So, I’m looking forward to improving our design as well. In the next, say, next 50 epis, if we jump the gun a little bit and say we’ve done 50 episodes, the next 50 episodes, I think will be a significant jump, both in terms of the amount of people we reach but also the level of professionalism if you like, having said that, the core thing is the quality of the programs, people have really, really resonated with their quality program. Monday’s episode with Ron Green was just outstanding. That was a great episode.

Alex Jensen: Yeah, I personally really enjoyed that interview because I think Ron is in a challenging position and exciting position. But people in those types of positions tend to be very guarded about what they say. And I felt that Ron opened up. And that’s the key to making a great podcast interview work. And we’ve had a lot of other guests do the same, by the way. I don’t want to exclude them. But for anyone listening who’s about to do an interview on a network, it makes such a big difference when you’re willing to come across as personable, obviously not bad mouthing this person and that person but being willing to get real is important.

Rod Rothwell: And also, I think we’ve been really good. And I know I’m patting myself on the back here. But I, one of the things I find most challenging about media in Korea even English language media in Korea is diversity. And I think that we’re starting to get that right. Not just gender diversity, or ethnic diversity, but diversity of ideas. And you know, in the last two weeks, we’ve had people talk about cryptos. We’ve had people talk about critical metals, we’ve had people talk about the entertainment industry, we’ve had people talk about the people industry. And all of these ideas although they seem quite separate at the beginning. By the end of it, they do seem to have some common narratives.

Alex Jensen: Excellent stuff, Rod. Well, we’ve got events happening again, we got the certain P word, the pandemic, which we’re trying to avoid about too much, because we do want to be an oasis of calm away from COVID 19. I think we’ve had some of that feedback as well. Although at the moment, we are still at something of a crossroads. And as I read recently, a lot of people have done with COVID. Unfortunately, it’s not done with us yet.

Rod Rothwell: Yeah. Just anybody who does want COVID news, I am working on an in-depth guest to bring us maybe within a week or so the feeling from the pharma industry about how they’re looking to go form, go further, and what kind of changes they might need to make to vaccines and things like that. So, if you are a pandemic file, stay tuned for that.

Alex Jensen: Excellent. And thank you very much for joining me on the eve of this actually going out. It’s now Tuesday evening, and we’re on the cusp of a new month, December 1^st by the time this is played, and let’s hope it’s a great one for everybody. And one that sees us move beyond the current alarm that is spreading around the world, courtesy of the World Health Organization and others, although that’s their job, not necessarily ours. Rod, great as always.

Rod Rothwell: Thank you very much, Alex. Have a great night.

Alex Jensen: And so, from Rod Rothwell, to tomorrow we’re going to be catching up with the president of the German Chamber of Commerce, the Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, KGCCI to give its full title. I recently hosted the Innovation Awards that they held in Seoul. And that was a really good example of an offline event so we can reflect on that and more. So, make sure you tune in to the rest of our interviews this week. And remember to share your ideas. Another way to do that is through our LinkedIn, just search KBLA, see you again tomorrow.