After forty years of giving
speeches, kissing babies and shaking hands, Kim Dae Jung has finally
achieved his life-long goal. After forty years of surviving
assassination attempts, kidnapping, arrests and death sentences, Kim
Dae Jung (DJ) transformed himself from pesky opposition leader to
President-elect.
In a seemingly endless campaign
of mudslinging, taking place during a near economic
collapse, DJ, of the National Congress for New Politics,
barely surpassed Lee Hoi Chang, of the Grand National Party
(formerly the New Korea Party) in the closest election in Korea's
short democratic history. The vote counting continued through
the early morning before Lee conceded victory to DJ, who becomes the
first opposition leader to assume the presidency.
The election was marked by
immense regional differences but Seoul and Kyungi Province may
have proven the difference as DJ won a plurality in that highly
populated area. Turnout reached about 80% despite predictions
of a lower rate, likely because of the economic woes facing the
country. Turnout was highest in the Cholla Provinces where DJ
won an incredible 95% of the vote. DJ is from Mokpo in South
Cholla and never even campaigned there. Lee made a stop
in the region during the last week of the campaign, but persuaded
few voters. Such regional loyalty is unimaginable in Western
democracies.
Lee managed to comfortably win (with
65%) the Kyungsang Provinces. long the main base of his ruling
party, despite the efforts of Rhee In Je, who bolted from the ruling
party to start his own New People's Party. Lee also swept
Kangwon Province in the northeast with about 65% of the vote.
In all three provinces, however, Lee could not the dominance of Kim
because Rhee took close to 30% of the vote in these regions.
With the help of Kim Jong Pil, the third Kim, DJ prevailed in the
Chung Chong Provinces in hotly contested region. Lee and Kim
JP both hail from the region. The combination of the two Kims
proved decisive.
My article
last month was completed just prior to the collapse of the won
and the ensuing IMF bailout. At the time, DJ was leading the
polls with Lee beginning to close the gap and Rhee In Je starting to
falter. The official campaign began twenty-two days prior to
election day and polls were prohibited for the remainder of the
campaign.
Observers predicted that the
economic crisis would help Lee, as conservative voters would want to
keep the ruling party in power in such an emergency situation.
Lee used that fear and warned that a vote for Rhee was a vote for
Kim DJ. Lee further blamed the economic crisis on the "Three
Kims" even though only one Kim, the former leader of his party, ever
held the office of the president. He further forgot to mention
that he was prime minister for half of President Kim's
administation.
Rhee, in the end, played the
spoiler, proving Lee's warnings true. Had he dropped out, Lee
would have easily defeated DJ. His failure to keep his promise
to abide by his party's nomination haunted him throughout the
campaign. In the end, the media presented the election as a
two way race, which likely discouraged potential voters from
considering him. Rhee is 49 years old and will probably be the
front runner in the next election. If Korea is like the United
States, that campaign is already underway.
The actions of the candidates
worsened the economic crisis, costing most of our readers dearly in
terms of exchange. The request for IMF assistance brought out
the nationalism in all three candidates, including the formerly
internationalist DJ. All three bitterly attacked the bailout
as "imperialism" and "colonialism." After all three made calls
for reforming the agreement, the IMF leader requested that the
candidates sign a pledge to honor the agreement if elected.
All three signed, but DJ still made some comments prompting a
continuing panic in the stock market and foreign exchange
market.
DJ later reaffirmed his
commitment and claimed to be misrepresented. He claims he only
stated that the agreement should have a provision which allows
changes to the agreement should circumstances change. The
other two candidates blasted him for his recklessness but his
comments may have been a shrewd (domestically, if not
internationally) political ploy. Voters may have seen him as
the most committed patriot, who, nonetheless, is compelled to follow
international pressure.
In the end, Koreans may not be
as conservative as international observers believe. Despite a
crisis, they decided to get rid of a party that has ruled since
1961. Lee failed to convince voters that he was dedicated to
reform the system that he was a part of for years. On the
other hand, this was not a revolutionary change of power. DJ
has beena familiar face for 40 years. There is likely to be
change in the way politics and business interact, but most of the
change will be due to international pressure.
Some questions remain
unanswered. The first and most important question is how will
the international business community react to DJ's victory, given
his comments about renegotiating the IMF agreement? As of this
writing, DJ had not made his acceptance speech. That
speech should provide some clues to what he intends to do.
The second question is how can
he govern when his party is a minority party in the Assembly, the
civil service is filled with hacks from the ruling party, and he had
only 15% support or less in Pusan, Taegu, the two Kyungsang
Provinces and Kangwon Province? Will the people unite behind
him throughout the country? Despite his age, DJ is a charismatic
speaker and should be able to unite the people, if not the
politicians. His cabinet appointments may be crucial to
working with the Assembly and the bureaucracy.
The third question is can he
manage to keep the support of the Cholla Provinces where he won 95%
of the vote? No chance. As soon as he makes a difficult
choice, he will lose at least a third of those supporters. The
more intriguing question is where are the 5% who voted for Lee and
Rhee hiding? It takes a brave soul to vote against DJ in the
Cholla Provinces.
As a final comment, it should be
pointed out this is the first election where no law enforcement
officials or other government officials were accused of interfering
with the election. There were very few cases of campaign
violations, most of them dealing with false advertising and
mudslinging. News reports indicated there were some minor
cases involving efforts to buy votes with watches or other small
gifts. These things happen in all democracies. Kim Young
Sam was the first civilian president in thirty years. Kim Dae
Jung will be the first president from an opposition party. He
inherits an incredible mess which he may not be able to solve alone
but Korea is, nevertheless, making progress.
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