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[Candidate 3] Ahn Cheol-soo - People’s Party

News2017-05-09
[Candidate 3] Ahn Cheol-soo - People’s Party

Becoming a politician was People’s Party presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo's fourth incarnation. Starting out as a medical doctor, the centrist politician transformed into a software developer then a professor at South Korea's leading universities.
 
Ahn began researching anti-virus software programs when as a graduate student, his computer was infected. After serving as a medical officer in the Navy, he declined an offer to become an assistant medical professor at Seoul National University and founded security software provider Ahnlab.
 
He became wildly popular among young people in 2011 after giving youth-focused talks around the nation. That year, he was a frontrunner in polls leading up to the Seoul mayoral election, but said he would instead back Park Won-soon, who clinched the job thanks to Ahn's support. By 2014, he fulfilled his promise to transfer half of his stockholdings in Ahnlab to a charitable foundation.
 
He ran in the 2012 presidential election, but dropped out of the race after endorsing Moon Jae-in. Winning a seat in the National Assembly the next year, Ahn founded a party which merged with Moon's. But after increasing conflict with Moon, he left the party to establish a new party.

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