Political Agenda for 2010

By Tong Kim

President Lee Myung-bak has set forth his policy direction for 2010, which comprises of ``strengthening global diplomacy, economic revitalization toward becoming an advanced nation, and implementation of centrist pragmatic policies for the poor." There is good reason to believe that President Lee can do well in all three areas, if he shows strong political leadership. His second year in office, 2009, was quite successful in terms of rebounding from the economic downturn from the global financial crisis and enhancing South Korea's diplomatic role in world affairs. South Korea is one of the few countries that seem to be heading in the right direction for economic recovery. The country has won a $20-billion contract to build atomic power plants for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). And Seoul will host the second of the 2010 G20 conferences.

The year 2010 is a politically important year, and the Lee government faces difficult challenges. Despite the sanguine prospects of economic growth for this year, there has been little success in job creation. There has been little progress in educational reform. Public education, including regular high school education, is not enough for many students to be accepted by colleges in Korea.

Most students depend on expensive extracurricular classes at private institutions, costing an average expense of $1,000 per month. This heavy burden on parents is a source of serious social distress especially to those in low-income brackets. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened under the government's growth-oriented policy that has tended to favor big business.

The government is expected to soon announce a revised plan for the construction of a new city to be called Sejong City, changing from its original plan for a national administrative city to a ``scientific, educational and industrial complex." Any revised plan requires parliamentary approval. As of now, the government does not seem to have enough votes in the National Assembly to pass a bill for a revised plan.

The fate of Sejong City will affect the nationwide local elections scheduled for June ― which will choose provincial governors, metropolitan city mayors, and administrative executives for smaller local governments and their legislators. Historically, no governing party has won a decisive victory in by-elections or local elections in South Korea. But this does not necessarily mean that the Grand National Party (GNP) will lose in the coming local elections.

President Lee, a native of Gyeongsang Province, has adopted a political doctrine of ``centrist pragmatism" in an attempt to overcome the problems of decades-old regional politics and continuing ideological conflicts. His first prime minister was from Gangwon Province, and his incumbent prime minister is from Chungcheong Province, a clear sign of Lee's consideration of regional balance. The president's ``centrist pragmatism" is still being tested and its success or failure will not likely be known before he leaves office.

This week, former GNP leader Park Geun-hye firmly rejected any government plan that would compromise the original plan for Sejong City. She has launched a direct challenge to President Lee. The GNP holds 169 seats in the 299-seat national legislature. Of the GNP National Assembly members, about 60 are affiliated with a faction that supports Park, who was a formidable competitor to Lee during the 2007 presidential primaries. Today Park has the highest rating of support among potential candidates for the 2012 presidential election with about 34 percent.

Opposition parties ― including the progressive Democratic Party (DP), which has 87 seats, and the conservative Liberty Forward Party (LFP), which has 18 seats ― are determined to stop the government from carrying out an alternative plan for Sejong City. The LFP's base is the Chungcheong region, which naturally wants to keep the original plan to build a central administrative city in its jurisdiction, to which nine ministries and four agencies were to be relocated.

While the GNP is reluctant to take up a revision bill for the new city, President Lee makes a strong economic argument for an altered plan for Sejong City. In his mind, the new city ought to be economically self-sufficient and it should not become an obstacle to his efforts to compete in the global economic system. If the administration is split between the two areas, the cost of commuting between Seoul and the new city, about 150 kilometers apart, for over 10,000 government workers ― who are likely to decide against relocation ― would be an unnecessary burden to the country. Lee also argues that cabinet ministers and other ranking officials of the relocated agencies would have to spend many hours travelling to attend meetings that would continue to be held in Seoul.

Lee apparently knows changing the new city's original plan would cost him much of his political capital. He said last August he would have little to gain politically from aborting the original plan, but that his successor, whoever that will be, would benefit from the revision. Whether or not his successor will benefit is speculation at this point, but he was right to predict a political cost associated with changing the plan. According to the worst-case scenario, a division in the GNP over the Sejong City issue could even develop into a permanent split of the ruling party, ending the ``sleeping with the enemy" situation between the pro-Lee and pro-Park factions.

The government has offered special incentives of low land prices and reduced taxes to prospective businesses and educational institutions for their investment and relocation. This has triggered protests from other regional provinces and districts, which have been competing to attract businesses to their own jurisdiction.

President Lee might have been politically better off by simply delaying the implementation of the original plan for the Sejong City. But he seems determined to do what he believes is right for the country. Success or failure of the Sejong City project, as well as that of Lee's ``four river project," which critics believe is a prelude, not a substitute, to an aborted inland waterway project, will define President Lee's political leadership.

A more profound political question is whether South Korea should revise its Constitution and whether it should reform its electoral districts. President Lee showed strong interest in constitutional revision as ``a solution to the fundamental problems" of an ``imperial presidency" and a regional divide in politics.

There are two major proposals for a new constitution ― a five-year single term dual presidential system by which the power of the president is shared with his or her prime minister, and a four-year presidential system under which a president and a vice president would be allowed to serve two terms. While constitutional change is an appropriate agenda item, it is unlikely that this will coincide with the June elections.

An electoral reform that would help end the long practice of electing candidates based on their regional affiliation seems almost impossible in South Korea, where political parties largely depend on their regional support. What's your take?

Tong Kim is a research professor with the Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He can be reached at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.