Having announced his intention to run in the December presidential election, Seoul National University professor Ahn Cheol-soo will now face increasingly tougher challenges to prove his ethicality.

Ahn has built an image of being clean-cut and has been stressing the need to reform various practices of the country’s political circles such as negative campaigns against opposition candidates.

However, Ahn’s image and the emphasis he places on creating a clean political environment appear likely to prompt his rivals to apply more stringent standards against him.

The ruling Saenuri Party had been stepping up attacks on Ahn’s ethics for some time. While Saenuri presidential candidate Park Geun-hye has denied related allegations, the ruling party has even been rumored to have a team dedicated to related matters.

Regardless of such rumors, a number of issues, which Ahn and his associates claimed were groundless, that shed doubt on Ahn’s ethicality have been raised in the run up to Wednesday’s announcement.

Many of the issues concern his finances, some going back as far as the 1980s.

In his book “Ahn Cheol-soo’s Thoughts” published in July, Ahn stated that he lived in a “jeonse” property for a long time and so he was “well aware of the sorrows of not owning a home.” Jeonse is a local property renting system where the tenant does not pay a monthly rent but pays a large deposit which the property’s owner holds for the contract period.

However, it was later shown that Ahn had not lived in rented properties since December 1989, the year after he became married.

In addition, questions have been raised about the process through which he purchased the rights to a property in a redevelopment area in 1988.

Ahn, however, failed to provide a clear answer to questions about whether the process was legal and if taxes were correctly paid, saying only that he did not remember the exact details.

Doubts about Ahn’s integrity have also been raised from developments concerning his company AhnLab.

While Ahn’s aides have explained that all processes were legal, it has been pointed out that he purchased AhnLab warrant bonds below the market price in 1999 while his wife and sibling were the company board members.

He has also been accused of having been a puppet board member while serving as an outside director for the steelmaker POSCO, and has been criticized for having signed a petition for SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won when he was indicted in 2003.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)