Leaders Ought to Respect, Not Reshape, Public Opinion

President Lee Myung-bak finally made clear his intention not to build another administrative city, on the nationally-televised ``Dialogue with the People'' Friday.

Bluntly speaking, Cheong Wa Dae should be urged to stop resorting to this sort of town hall meeting on TV to push through a socially controversial and politically unpopular agenda, which ended up ― once again ― a flop in both form and content.

In terms of form, the two-hour-long talk show broadcast live by all network stations was not exactly a ``dialogue with'' the people but closer to a presidential ``monologue to'' the people against the backdrop of a carefully selected panel and audience, who threw screened questions in feigned naturalness.

This can hardly replace a formal news conference, which President Lee rarely gives: He has held only one press meeting with Cheong Wa Dae correspondents this year, in September, and on the precondition of ``not asking questions related with the controversial Sejong City project.'' Lee's predecessors also used the ``talk-with-the-people'' format but only as supplements to ― not as a replacement for ― press conferences.

Looking back, it has always been like that with Lee when he pushes an unpopular or unjustified agenda. The President, for instance, resorted to his parliamentary majority in ramming through hotly contested bills instead of trying to persuade political opponents. He then apologized and appealed to the public instead of facing journalists.

In the process, he succeeded in shifting popular attention from the initial issue of whether or not, to how. It is the same in this case regarding the building of an administration-oriented city 160 km south of Seoul, mostly aided by pro-government conservative papers, which brush aside opponents' arguments as ``unproductive debate'' or ``opposition for opposition's sake.''

President Lee said his decision not to build an administrative town was for the nation and its long-term development, because the original plan would make it a ghost town inhabited by just 100,000 or so public servants and their families. Nothing could be further from the truth. The original plan envisions a fully self-supportive city with a population of 500,000 with all the necessary functions. Summing up, the Lee administration's argument is ``everything is possible in the new city except for relocating government ministries.''

And behind such a reversal is their obsession that Seoul should forever be as it is now, monopolizing everything good the nation has to protect the establishment's vested interests. They warn against the harms of splitting the government, but an hour on the KTX would take the Cabinet ministers to anywhere in Seoul as fast as ― if not faster than ― a chauffeured drive from Gwacheon, just south of the capital city.

Lee, after offering an ``indirect apology'' this time, also asked people to make their judgment after the government comes up with a revised plan in two weeks to turn the city into a business town focusing on research and education. The President, however, fell short of telling them what he would do if public opinion still oppose it after half a month or so, or even whether he would conduct a fair survey.

We urge in this regard the Lee administration to put not just the revised Sejong City plan but equally controversial ``four-river refurbishment'' project and even the attempted media overhaul to a national referendum, and drop them if a majority of people vote against them.

Some might ask why the nation should retrograde from modern representative democracy to ancient direct diplomacy. We think even basic democracy is better than democracy in name only.