Kim Dae Jung Comes Up Short
By John Larkin/SEOUL
Far East Economic Review
Issue cover-dated May 24, 2001

The president was seen as a harbinger of change when he finally came to power in 1997. But disillusioned voters, who expected democratic advances and a remodelled economy, are showing their displeasure

AS POLITICAL STATEMENTS GO, this one got to its point faster than most: Zip-lock bags of human excrement mailed to MPs recently by long-suffering voters summed up their sense of betrayal with all South Korean politicians. But President Kim Dae Jung is getting most of the blame. He promised in 1997 that the country's democracy would be burnished and its shattered economy remodelled, but voters see next to no change.

They are making their displeasure felt as well as smelt. President Kim's popularity ratings have dived below 30%, to the surprise of an international community that still reveres him. He's seen as a lame duck leader 19 months from a presidential election he is barred from contesting under a constitution that allows only one term.

His party was thrashed in local by-elections in late April. His support-base of students and blue-collar workers are furious at job cuts. The economy is in a tailspin, exposing his patchy record on reform. Major parties bicker endlessly, instead of trying for compromise.

The man who promised to be different from his predecessors is now accused of ruling in the same high-handed manner. Elected during the Asian financial crisis and with a mandate for sweeping change, Kim now presides over a political disaster zone. "I thought he would be the man to solve our problems," gripes Cho Yoon Bon as she tries to entice customers at Seoul's Namdaemun Market, where she sells cheap baby clothes. "But he's turned out just like all the others--a big disappointment."

The disillusionment of Cho and so many others has huge implications for South Korea's next president. Kim Dae Jung's Millennium Democratic Party blames the economy for its low standing. Party spokesman Kim Jae Il says smear campaigns by previous governments persuaded 70% of people to oppose Kim Dae Jung. "Now the economy has slumped and it's back to that figure." But the crisis engulfing his government is due as much to the president's failure to bring South Korea's destructive political culture into step with a more sophisticated electorate. Confidence in politicians is so low that the next president could have the shortest honeymoon on record unless public faith in politicians is boosted, and quickly.

If that doesn't happen, activists for further democratic reform, like lawyer Park Won Soon, fear an entire generation may give up on politics. Already there are worrying signs. At the general election in April last year voter turnout fell below 60% for the first time ever, and the recent by-elections enticed a pitiful 28% of voters. A disproportionate number of young people, like 26-year-old middle-school teacher Lim Eun Jung, don't bother to vote.

"Our politicians always break their promises," says Lim. "Education policy, for example, has been changed many times and ministers are always replaced. It's impossible for us to trust the government's policies."

Lawyer Park is afraid more youths will turn their back on politics. "If that happens we'll resemble Japan where the politics is so bad, but people don't get angry. Then any change will be difficult," he says.

To prevent Japan-style stasis, Park's People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy plans a major campaign at local and presidential elections next year, including a reprise of its blacklisting of 86 candidates at last year's general election which resulted in 59 of them losing. The movement hopes to exploit voter anger, while it's still there, to forge political changes which in South Korea are key to economic reforms.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Much remains unchanged under Kim, say his growing band of critics. Lawmakers are still more focused on currying favour with party bosses than on the public good. Power is concentrated on the president. If he fails to force political and economic reform, the National Assembly is powerless to intervene. Progressives see a huge opportunity lost to consolidate democracy and the market economy, as the more conservative Grand National Party is favoured to win the next presidential election.

"Kim's missed his chance," laments Park Won Soon. "We're almost out of hope. At least in the past we could expect the next government to be better. But this time we expect it to be even less daring."

Kim's failure to improve political discourse made it easy for an increasingly picky electorate to turn on him when things went wrong. Things did go wrong, though it wasn't all his fault. He courageously chose to engage North Korea. But in the process he handed market-opening economic reforms to a bureaucracy with a vested interest in stalling them.

To massage public opinion before general elections and his Pyongyang summit last June with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the focus was shifted from painful restructuring to economy-boosting policies, say economists. Then came the global slowdown, prompting the debt-ridden corporate sector to slash jobs. "Kim Dae Jung completely messed up the timing," says Lee Keun Mo, head of research at Good Morning Securities. "That's why things are so tough this year." Protesters on the streets of Seoul complain about the stagnant economy. But their ire is fuelled also by the failure to reform a political infrastructure that discourages open debate.

The rot began almost immediately after the 1997 election when, lacking a parliamentary majority, Kim Dae Jung chose the old tactic of poaching opposition lawmakers. "That's where problems always start," sighs Hahm Chai Bong, a political science professor at Yonsei University. "You basically try to dissolve parliament without going to the people. The opposition claims some of its lawmakers were coerced by the prosecution, which raised the issue of prosecuting campaign misdeeds."

The opposition has misbehaved, but bipartisan consensus would have stood a better chance of surviving if the government had taken the high road early. Kim won the election by forging an unlikely coalition with the United Liberal Democrats, or ULD, led by Kim Jong Pil, an arch-conservative who was a premier during the dictatorial 1963-79 rule of Kim Dae Jung's nemesis, Park Chung Hee (see story on page 22). It is a fragile pairing, and the latest repair job early this year, when three lawmakers "defected" from the ruling party to the ULD, has further weakened presidential credibility.

Perhaps Kim's most worrying legacy is the perpetuation of a bitter rift between the southeastern Kyongsang provinces and his own stronghold, the Cholla provinces in the southwest. Key public offices and Kim's own team of advisers are dominated by loyalists from Cholla.

"This has upset the people and reinforced regional animosity," says Choi Jang Jip, a professor of political science at Korea University.

Kim's failure to heal this divide means the pendulum should swing back to Kyongsang if the opposition wins next year. "The next election will be a revenge election," says Hahm. "Kim's biggest mistake was to impress upon people that all that counts is regional ties. You can bet that every tiny village in Kyongsang will have people getting out the vote for their region's candidate."

Successive graft scandals, meanwhile, have undermined faith in Kim's anti-corruption campaign. Little has been done to separate the public prosecutor's office and the national tax office from government influence, according to the opposition. It failed in an attempt to impeach two prosecutors last year when ruling-party legislators barricaded the parliamentary speaker in his office to prevent him from presiding over the vote. A tax audit of major newspapers has been tainted by allegations, denied by the government, that the ruling party is trying to muzzle the press.

The political old boys' club still prevails and parties remain entourages based on charismatic leaders rather than a shared philosophy. Power is focused on bosses, with the rank-and-file kept out of candidate selection. This creates parties of "yes-men," and candidates sometimes chosen for their chequebooks.

Legislation has been introduced to stamp out political corruption, but like other reform bills it is stalled as the parties haggle over details. The preservation of the old party power structure could reflect President Kim's own dogmatism in his policy approach. "I've heard from people in the Blue House that nobody can disagree with Kim Dae Jung," says David Steinberg, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University, referring to the presidential residence. "It's a kind of self-generating orthodoxy."

This may explain domestic policy bungles like health-insurance reforms that may, it is feared, put the system 4 trillion won in debt by the year's end (see box on page 21). Unpopular experiments with the education system are spurring emigration to countries with better schooling. Reforms were justified, but in each case the debates fell victim to a winner-take-all mentality that Kim has failed to eradicate.

"He knows what he should do in a democracy, but the problem is he has never experienced real democratic discussion," says Korea University's Choi Jang Jip, adding that this means respecting other people's opinions.

By shunning painful reforms when the economy was buoyant enough to take the hit in 1999, President Kim has stoked rising unemployment among his political base--blue-collar workers. With the economy weak and the social-welfare system underdeveloped, they have little choice but to protest fiercely against job cuts. Kim has left it too late to make the painful reforms needed to clean up the corporate sector. According to a recent estimate 58% of companies are junk-rated, totalling 63% of corporate debt.

Here again, Kim's timing is proving to be off. The global downturn has made large-scale bankruptcies politically impossible. The result has been rescue packages, sponsored by government-run banks, of heavily indebted companies such as Hyundai Construction and Hynix. "With the economy in its current state, he just can't justify further reform," says Hahm.

The comatose economy is poisoning his pet policy--engaging North Korea. Kim's Pyongyang visit was a major coup, but he's getting little credit now. The gloss of the Nobel Peace Prize he received in recognition of his peace efforts has worn off at home.

"It's baffling to me why he did not get more credit from Koreans for what's he's done," says Donald Gregg, a former United States ambassador to Korea. "It's unfair."

PET POLICY AT RISK

But engaging North Korea only works if South Korea's economy is healthy. The fact that it's not gives citizens, many of whom detest the Pyongyang regime, another reason to think Kim's government is out of touch.

"The real problem is that South Koreans are dangerously polarized on engaging the North," says a senior government official. "We don't know how to debate in this country. The domestic consensus should be better looked after."

Perhaps it was too much to expect Kim Dae Jung, who cut his political teeth during Korea's authoritarian past, to sweep away the legacies of that era. With so many vested interests stymieing reform, it may be left up to grassroots activists like Park Won Soon to force through change. "There's never been political reform in Korea from the top," notes David Steinberg. "It always comes from the bottom."

Park's group is calling on lawmakers to publicly explain next month which promises they've broken and why. It has formed action committees to force parties to make political fund-raising more transparent and to democratize boss-dominated political parties from the ground up. "We've delayed reforms for 400 years," Park says. "The system should be redesigned from scratch." Park expects widespread public support. If he gets it, South Korea's political bosses will have a lot more to worry about than nasty mail.