“Electing a new Korean president . . . will have far-reaching political and policy ram- ifications, both domestic and foreign, perhaps greater than ever in recent history.”
The Election That Could Reorder South Korea’s Politics GI-WOOK SHIN
his year is one of elections and leadership ramifications, both domestic and foreign, perhaps changes throughout the Asia-Pacific region. greater than ever in recent history. While Korea’s TEarlier in 2012, Taiwan reelected President macroeconomic performance has been quite good, Ma Ying-jeou to a second term. North Korea and especially compared with Japan and Europe’s, dis- Russia have already seen transfers of power this parities between rich and poor have grown visibly year; it will be China’s turn in the fall. The United in recent years. Social welfare will be a central is- States holds its presidential election in November. sue during the campaign and thus for the incom- And South Korea will elect a president in Decem- ing administration—the ruling and opposition ber. Individually and collectively, these leadership parties are already sparring over it. South Korea changes hold crucial implications for Northeast will also have to deal with a nuclear North Ko- Asian nations as well as the United States. rea while maintaining a robust alliance with the South Korea is holding two key elections in United States and seeking an appropriate balance 2012. In April, Koreans chose all 300 members of with a rising China next door. their unicameral National Assembly, allowing the Whoever ends up occupying the Blue House ruling conservatives, the New Frontier Party, to (the head of state’s residence and office), the next retain a slight majority. The presidential election president will likely move away from Lee’s hard- to replace conservative incumbent Lee Myung-bak line approach to North Korea, which has seem- will be conducted December 19. (Lee is ineligible ingly failed to deter further provocations from to seek reelection because South Korea’s constitu- Pyongyang. Yet the policy will vary considerably tion limits presidents to a single term of five years.) depending on whether a conservative or a progres- The ruling party’s leading candidate for presi- sive administration comes to power, a difference dent is Park Geun-hye, the daughter of Park that may have major implications for South Ko- Chung-hee, the authoritarian president from 1963 rea’s relations with America and China. to 1979 and father of Korea’s economic “miracle.” While the progressive main opposition party, the APRIL SURPRISE United Democratic Party (UDP), does not yet have The results of the general election of April 2012 as clear a frontrunner as Park, key contenders such revealed not only the persistence of old currents as Moon Jae-in and Kim Du-kwan are closely asso- but also the advent of new ones in Korean politics. ciated with the late President Roh Moo-hyun. An- Before the election, most observers anticipated a other popular candidate is entrepreneur-turned- resounding victory for the progressive opposition professor Ahn Cheol-soo; Ahn is likely to run as parties. Only a few months earlier, the era of the an independent. then-ruling party, the conservative Grand National Electing a new Korean president will not be Party, appeared to be over. The GNP’s image had simply a matter of changing the face at the nation’s been marred by a series of political scandals lead- helm. It will have far-reaching political and policy ing to the resignation of the speaker of the Na- tional Assembly. However, under the leadership of Madam Park, the GNP successfully remodeled GI-WOOK SHIN is a professor of sociology and director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stan- itself as the New Frontier (Saenuri) Party, winning ford University. 152 of the total 300 seats and far exceeding expec-
223 224 UÊ 1,, /Ê-/",9Ê UÊ -i«ÌiLiÀÊÓä£Ó tations. By contrast, the UDP was able to secure Base. This leftward shift cost the UDP the support only 127 seats. Its humiliating defeat prompted of many moderate voters and rallied conservatives the resignation of party head Han Myeong-sook. in support of the ruling party. What, then, caused this surprising develop- More fundamental factors also shaped the elec- ment, and what larger political currents can we tion outcome—including regional voting patterns. discern in the outcome of the general election? The ruling party failed to elect a single member First, the ruling party won the game of framing to the Assembly from the opposition stronghold campaign issues. The opposition tried to turn the in the southwestern Honam region. Only two of election into a referendum on the unpopular Lee its candidates even came close to winning there. administration, but the new ruling party leader, Meanwhile, the opposition gained only four seats Park, had not held any major position in the ad- in the ruling party’s base in the Youngnam region ministration and, in fact, was widely regarded as in the nation’s southeast. Such regional bifurcation a force of opposition within the ruling party. Vot- has been a feature of Korean electoral outcomes ers thus did not necessarily equate Lee with Park for decades, but it was even stronger than usual and her “new” Saenuri Party. For its part, the rul- in the 2012 election, reflecting increased political ing party framed the election as a choice between and policy polarization between the two main par- a future leader (Park) and a bygone leader (Lee’s ties. As in the past, the parties more or less split predecessor, the late President Roh, who governed the Seoul-Kyeonggi-Incheon metropolitan region from 2003 to 2008), since the leaders of the UDP as a whole, though the opposition fared better in had been Roh’s senior advisers. the capital itself. The progressives made two other critical strate- A new regional wrinkle in this election, how- gic mistakes. One was to bring two controversial ever, was the role played by the Chungcheong and issues—the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement and Kangwon provinces. Surprisingly, the ruling party the construction of a naval won every seat in Kangwon base on the southern island province, which had elected of Jeju—to the fore early in It is becoming more challenging the opposition party can- the campaign. The signing didate as its governor the for South Korea to position itself of the trade pact and the previous year. The sharp new naval base (which op- between America and China. conservative turn among ponents claim will be used Kangwon voters was perhaps by the United States) were due to the opposition’s left- denounced by UDP leaders such as Han Myeong- ward shift. The ruling party also fared well in the sook, Moon Jae-in, and Lee Hae-chan—but both Chungcheong region, winning 12 of 25 districts. projects were first pursued by the Roh adminis- Its improved performance there can be attributed tration, for which these very same leaders had to Park Geun-hye’s vocal personal support, in the worked. (Han and Lee had served as prime minis- face of President Lee’s early opposition, for the ters under Roh, and Moon was his chief of staff.) transfer of government ministries from Seoul to a Not surprisingly, many voters saw their denounce- new capital annex city in the area. The conserva- ments as self-contradictory, and the ruling party tive party’s increased strength in these two areas attacked them not only for anti-Americanism and has significantly improved Park’s prospects for a weak sense of national security, but, most effec- winning the presidential election. tively, for hypocrisy and political opportunism. In addition, there was a huge turnover in par- The UDP also clouded the question of its own liament, with nearly half of all members winning identity. With a base in the Honam region (North election for the first time. This is not new to Ko- and South Cholla provinces), which has consid- rean politics, either. Koreans are highly demand- erably fewer voters than the conservative base in ing voters with a strong tradition of “kicking the Youngnam (North and South Kyongsang provinc- bums out.” Unlike the United States, where nearly es), its leaders were anxious to enter into an elec- all congressional incumbents win reelection, in- toral alliance with the left-wing United Progressive cumbents in Korea’s relatively new democracy do Party (UPP) to select a single progressive candidate not enjoy advantages over challengers, and the in each of some key districts. To do so, the UDP parties’ top-down leaderships seek to maximize accepted much of the UPP’s agenda, including op- their election prospects by replacing unexciting position to the free trade agreement and Jeju Naval incumbents with fresh new candidates. The Election That Could Reorder South Korea’s Politics U 225
On the other hand, very few independent can- ily in the opposition’s favor. Second, data from the didates won Assembly seats: only three, compared April election show that, nationwide, the progres- with the twenty-five elected four years ago. This, sive parties received slightly more votes by party too, reflected the polarization between the main than conservatives. (Koreans cast two votes for conservative and progressive parties and the fierce- National Assembly members: one for a particular ness of the campaign. candidate, the other for a party. The two major Contrary to conventional wisdom about politi- conservative parties together received 9,819,069 cal apathy among youth, young people went to party votes, while the two major progressive par- the polling stations in great numbers. Many were ties combined for 9,973,819.) Third, although mobilized through the internet and social media, Park has consolidated her position within the especially Twitter, as for the first time it became New Frontier Party, she must still overcome intra- legal to urge people to vote using social media on party factionalism. And finally, the UDP defeat has election day itself. The effect was notable: Voter created a sense of crisis among opposition forces, participation skyrocketed in the afternoon as ce- which may now work harder to ensure that only lebrities and ordinary citizens alike posted encour- one progressive candidate is on the presidential aging messages and photos of themselves in the ballot in December, as in the 2002 election. voting booth. Analysts predict that the number of Yet the opposition parties face even greater Korean Twitter users will double by December to challenges. They lost an election that they were about 10 million, or one-fifth of the total popula- expected to win. Since UDP President Han stepped tion. down to take responsibility for the defeat, the par- The impact of social networking services should ty has struggled with regional- and personality- not be exaggerated. While they were indeed effec- based intra-party factionalism. The UPP, which did tive in mobilizing young, educated voters in larger relatively well in April thanks to its collaboration cities in the April election, their impact elsewhere with the UDP, is on the verge of a schism over ide- was limited. Also, public opinion surveys have ological differences and charges of voting fraud. shown that voters skeptically filter the information In the presidential election, the opposition’s main provided by social media. Still, the generational challenge is fielding a viable candidate. Currently, difference in mobilization and voting patterns in the UDP’s leading candidate in the polls is Moon. Korea, while relatively new, is a phenomenon that However, unlike Park, he had no “coattails” in his is expected to persist. home region (Youngnam) in the National Assem- bly election, and this has cast doubt on his elect- PARK MOVES AHEAD ability. The ruling party’s come-from-behind victory There are alternatives, notably Kim Du-kwan, in April was certainly good news for Park. She the current governor of South Kyeongsang prov- proved her leadership abilities and confirmed her ince, and Sohn Hak-kyu, a former party chairman reputation as the “queen of elections.” In the pro- and former governor of Kyeonggi province, but cess, the leading conservative party has become their popularity is low. For the UPP, the challenges her own. Park is no longer seen simply as a former are daunting: Prevent the dissolution of the party, president’s daughter but as a politician in her own restore internal order, and either put forward its right. She is unlikely to face any major challenge own candidate or join the UDP in a unified ticket. to her nomination. Also, the fact that the ruling (A UPP candidate would stand virtually no chance party was victorious in April in both Kangwon and of election in any event, as the party is left of the Chungcheong, crucial swing-vote provinces, is national mainstream.) encouraging for her prospects. Most post-election The lack of a clear frontrunner among oppo- polls put Park ahead of all potential opponents, sition candidates for president has created space including Moon, the UDP’s leading candidate, and for Ahn, the independent, who could prove a for- Ahn, the independent. midable opponent for Park. Ahn was originally a Park has some causes for concern. First, she physician but became a successful entrepreneur must do better among younger voters in Seoul if and is now a professor at a top Korean university. she is to win the election. In April, Seoulites in Younger than many other candidates and not iden- their 20s came out to vote in record numbers. tified with existing parties, he is extremely popu- Their 64.1 percent participation rate (compared to lar among young people, for whom he holds an the overall rate of 54.3 percent) tilted Seoul heav- amorphous Obama-like post-partisan appeal. On 226 UÊ 1,, /Ê-/",9Ê UÊ -i«ÌiLiÀÊÓä£Ó the other hand, Ahn has never stood for elected table income distribution than most other nations. office and little is known about his policy prefer- Yet Lee’s “business-friendly” policy has been seen ences. as benefiting only big business, at the expense of Ahn rose to popularity last summer as he con- small and medium-sized companies, and as ignor- templated running for the Seoul mayorship; ulti- ing economic disparities and inadequate social mately, he chose not to and instead offered his sup- welfare programs. port to an independent, Park Won-soon, helping In this context, popular demand for increased to ensure Park’s victory over a conservative can- social welfare spending has been on the rise. And didate. Ahn clearly owes much of his popularity politicians, on the left and the right, have not to widespread disenchantment with the political shied away from making big welfare promises. establishment rather than to any proven political The potential presidential candidates have not leadership on his own part. For this reason, he is announced concrete economic policies, but they unlikely to run as a candidate of an existing party. are all sure to stress the need to expand welfare If he does run, and most expect him to do so, he support, whether it be the “customized welfare” almost certainly will declare himself the “candi- of the conservative ruling party or the “universal date of the citizens” but also seek UDP support. welfare” of the progressives. Demagoguery and At this point, the central question seems to be populism are possible as potential candidates rush the number of major candidates in the election. to make campaign promises for increased social Park is virtually certain to win a three-candidate spending while avoiding specifying where the race against a UDP candidate and Ahn, who would money will come from. split the progressive and youth vote, but it is not clear that Park could defeat a single candidate of a BACK TO SUNSHINE? unified opposition. Further clouding the forecast, North Korea is a lesser but still significant issue. it is not yet possible to rule out additional candi- In the last election, frustration with 10 years of dates on the right, who could split the conserva- a “Sunshine Policy” toward the North prompted tive vote. some swing voters to support the conservative candidate. They charged the Kim Dae-jung and RISING INEQUALITY Roh administrations with “ladling” aid into North As elsewhere, the economy is key to Korean Korea in the naïve expectation that the totalitarian elections. In the last campaign, Lee, a former regime would abandon its nuclear weapons pro- Hyundai executive, declared he would be a “CEO grams and otherwise improve its behavior. Con- president.” Koreans elected him on the expecta- servative voters also felt that policy disputes with tion that his business experience would enable the United States over the North had created un- him to manage the economy more effectively than necessary tension with the South’s major ally. the progressives. On this, however, his record has Reflecting such sentiments, the Lee government been mixed. On the one hand, South Korea has reversed course, conditioning most aid to North done better than most member states of the Or- Korea on the regime’s steps toward denucleariza- ganization for Economic Cooperation and Devel- tion while stressing the importance of the US al- opment (OECD) in recovering from the 2008–09 liance in dealing with Pyongyang. The North re- global financial crisis and ensuing recession. Ko- sponded with a second nuclear weapons test in rea was one of the few developed countries whose 2009 and a series of conventional military provo- economy actually grew during the crisis, achiev- cations in 2010, including the sinking of a South ing a 6.2 percent rate in 2010, up sharply from 2.3 Korean military vessel (the Cheonan) and the percent in 2008 and 0.3 percent in 2009. While shelling of a South Korean island (Yeonpyeong). Korea’s growth rate declined to 3.4 percent in the In local elections held only a few months after final quarter of 2011, it still far exceeded the OECD the Cheonan sinking, policy toward North Ko- average of 1.3 percent. Korea’s exports increased rea became a major campaign issue. In the past, by 19.6 percent in 2011, yielding a $33.3 billion such military provocations had usually worked trade surplus. in favor of the conservatives due to their tougher On the other hand, South Korea has seen a sharp stance toward the North. This time, however, it rise in economic and social disparities. One could lent momentum to progressive candidates, who argue that this growing inequality is not unique positioned themselves as dedicated to preserving to Korea and that the country still has more equi- “peace” while accusing conservatives of stoking The Election That Could Reorder South Korea’s Politics U 227 tensions on the peninsula. Under the Lee admin- tion, 47 of the 300 members of the National As- istration, inter-Korean contacts have been practi- sembly were women, a record high. It is also true cally frozen, and opinion polls show a majority that many Asian nations in which women’s rights of South Koreans favoring greater flexibility and are not strong have already elected female leaders efforts to improve relations, if not necessarily by to their top posts, from Megawati Sukarnoputri of returning to the policies of the Kim and Roh years. Indonesia to Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan to Gloria Candidates in the December presidential elec- Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines. Like Park, tion will be pressed to come up with a sensible they are all daughters of former political leaders. North Korean policy, especially regarding how to Although gender is not likely to figure as the cen- improve inter-Korean relations and denuclearize tral issue in the campaign, Park’s victory would the North. Making this issue still more impor- certainly raise hope for greater and more active tant is North Korea’s recent inauguration of a new female participation in Korean society. leader, Kim Jong-un. Some observers expect that Similarly, the election of Ahn as an independent the North will try to influence the outcome of the candidate would have a huge impact on Korean election in the hope of dealing with a friendlier ad- politics. Korea is a democratic country but one in ministration in the South, but what shape such in- which non-institutional politics that developed in terference might take and to what extent it might the struggle for democratization remains impor- be effective rather than counterproductive are not tant. Nongovernmental organizations, mostly on clear. the left but increasingly also on the right, play an As in the past, the qualifications of the can- outsized role largely owing to an unstable and in- didates will be hotly debated, but this time even effective party system. In fact, all three major po- more so. Other than Park, the top candidates are litical parties (the New Frontier, UDP, and UPP) political novices. The UDP’s leading candidate, are nominally only a few months old, though they Moon, was a human rights are the product of a remodel- lawyer before becoming a ing of existing parties rather senior adviser to President The next president will likely than genuinely new entities. Roh. He ran for public office move away from Lee’s hard-line The electorate is disen- for the first time in April to chanted with the existing become a member of the Na- approach to North Korea. parties despite their new tional Assembly. Ahn, the in- names, and this has contrib- dependent, was trained as a uted to Ahn’s rising popular- medical doctor, but launched a small venture com- ity. His victory as a “citizens’ candidate” would pany (Ahn Lab) before taking his current teaching create an anomalous situation in which the presi- position at Seoul National University. He has never dent had no party of his own, possibly resulting in held any public office, elected or appointed. political instability and complicating his efforts to By contrast, Park has a proven record of political lead the nation. leadership, rebuilding the GNP in 2003 and again this year. However, she has had no administrative DAUNTING TASKS experience. More important, she will have to con- Whoever wins in December, the new adminis- front the legacy of her father, the former dictator, tration will face the daunting task of growing the who modernized the country but did so with an economy while responding to public pressure for iron fist during his two-decade-long reign. Pub- expanded social welfare. This will be all the more lic opinion about him remains sharply divided— challenging because Korea is experiencing signifi- many Koreans revere him, others regard him as a cant demographic changes marked by a rapidly tyrant. For his daughter, this legacy is a double- aging population and a declining fertility rate (at edged sword. 1.24 children per woman, among the lowest rates Finally, it will be interesting to see if South Ko- in the world). In addition, the administration will rea breaks precedent and sends a female or an in- be pushed to reform business conglomerate (chae- dependent candidate to the Blue House. Korea has bol) policies, promote small and medium-sized a long history of patriarchal Confucianism, and businesses, and mitigate social and economic dis- men dominate key positions in most sectors of so- parities. But it will need to ensure that any reform ciety, including politics. However, the situation is of big business will not hurt Korea’s competitive- slowly but noticeably changing. In the April elec- ness in the global market, thereby damaging the 228 UÊ 1,, /Ê-/",9Ê UÊ -i«ÌiLiÀÊÓä£Ó nation’s economy as a whole. And, with severe fis- rea shared with China a similar approach toward cal problems in Europe, stagnation in Japan and North Korea, but policy disputes with the United the United States, and uncertainties in China, the States over the North raised tensions between the new president may face a global economy as weak allies. A new Sunshine Policy could create similar and volatile as Lee did within months of his inau- tensions with Washington over how to deal with a guration in February 2008. nuclear North Korea. Crafting a credible North Korea policy will Finally, while South Korea has made steady po- pose a major challenge as well. Whoever is elect- litical progress since its democratic transition, the ed, left or right, will attempt to repair strained ties need for basic institutional reform is still debated. with the North, but actual policy is expected to In particular, the public outcry against corruption vary significantly depending on which candidate continues to grow (some of President Lee’s confi- wins. Park likely would move toward the middle dants, including his brother, have been arrested on from the Lee government’s current hard-line ap- corruption charges). Against this backdrop many proach, but would continue to stress denuclear- experts call for a reduction in the power of the ization and close collaboration with the United presidency so as to achieve a sounder balance of States. On the other hand, a UDP administration power among the three branches of government. would reverse course, moving closer to the Sun- Moreover, with the current single-term limit, the shine Policy. There is even a chance that a new president often effectively becomes a lame duck progressive administration would move to the within three years of taking office. Thus for years left of the Sunshine Policy, as reflected in talk in many have demanded a constitutional change that Seoul these days of “engagement 2.0” and “thick would both reduce presidential powers and allow engagement.” Ahn’s policy preference is largely for multiple terms. This debate over basic institu- unknown, but probably lies somewhere between tional arrangements may intensify during the up- these two poles. coming presidential campaign. Policy toward North Korea will affect South More fundamentally, progressive and conserva- Korea’s relations with the United States and Chi- tive Koreans are divided in their views of North na. The alliance with America has been, and re- Korea and the US alliance. This division is ex- mains, a cornerstone of South Korea’s security tremely difficult to bridge, going, as it does, be- and stability, but the rise of China has brought a yond mere political and policy differences. Indeed, new element into play in Korea’s relations with it is closely tied to individuals’ sense of their iden- the United States. With China continuing to ex- tities as Koreans and as citizens of the Republic of ercise significant leverage over North Korea, and Korea. In addition, regional division within South with China’s trade with the South now more than Korea and a generation gap between young and that of the United States and Japan combined, it old make South Korean integration, not to men- is becoming more challenging for South Korea to tion North-South reconciliation, even more diffi- position itself between America and China, espe- cult. South Korea badly needs effective, consensus- cially as the rivalry and tensions between the two oriented political leadership to overcome these increase. The Lee administration worked closely bitter rifts and to take a future-oriented approach with Washington on its North Korea policy, but to the key policy issues of economic growth and in doing so strained ties with Beijing. During the equity, North Korea, and relations with the United Roh administration, on the other hand, South Ko- States and China. I