By Lee Chang-sup
This year’s presidential race is starting to seem like a World Cup final match — Park Geun-hye of the governing party has already reached the final, which will take place on Dec. 19, and is waiting for the result of the semifinal match between Moon Jae-in and Ahn Cheol-soo in the opposing camp.
However, unlike the World Cup fans, the voters do not know whether and when the semifinal match will take place. An educated guess would be before Nov. 26, the final date for the candidates’ registration. The two opposition candidates want to delay the judgment date in order to draw more voters, or to sell more tickets to soccer fans, so to speak.
Now, the core question is who will win the race. Previously, the polls showed Park as the clear leader. However, the latest polls show Park is now behind Ahn, and even Moon, in a two-way competition. This has put Park on the defensive.
In order to win, Park has to overcome her father’s yoke. She has said that she is running for the presidency as a candidate of the conservative Grand National Party, not as the daughter of the late President Park.
Thus, in a belated move to calm the public sentiment regarding her father’s brutal 18-year rule, she apologized Monday to the victims and bereaved family members who had suffered under her father’s rule.
In her apology, she said her father’s military coup on May 16, 1961, the Yushin Revitalizing Reform in 1972 and the summary execution of eight dissidents have damaged the Constitutional spirit and delayed the nation’s progress toward democracy and political plurality.
Park said her presidency would create a pan-national panel to help heal the emotional and psychological wounds of the victims, in order to achieve national integration. She also acknowledged the untold sacrifices and sufferings of many workers in the nation’s miraculous and condensed economic development.
Her apology is a positive update from her previous light-hearted statements that history should judge her father’s rule. However, it is still unclear whether her apology would convince the skeptical voters to stand behind her.
In order to move out of the defensive mode, she must also scrutinize her campaign staff’s integrity. A few of her aides, including her chief campaign manager and former lawmaker Hong Sa-duk, are implicated in alleged corruptions, which have alienated undecided voters.
However, Park must also come clean herself, especially regarding rumors of her hidden wealth. The people want to know how she and her family manage the wealth they had inherited from the late President Park. Her purported link to the Chungsoo Foundation, the de facto owner of the nation’s second-largest broadcasting company, MBC, is also an Achilles’ heel.
Although Park has a track record of maintaining principles and avoiding double-talk, she is often nicknamed “Princess,” and is often derided for her aloof and communication-shy attitude. She should demonstrate democratic, horizontal leadership in her meetings with her campaign managers.
Ironically, she garners solid support from older voters, namely those in their 50s and beyond, who had been adolescents during the late President Park’s iron-grip rule. This generation accounts for 39.6 percent of total voters, and has increased by 5.8 million in the past decade, making it a significant voting demographic.
However, she must work to convince voters in other age groups. Voters in their 20s and 30s, despite having decreased by 1.3 million in the past decade, are another significant demographic. Young Koreans want a candidate who talks about the future, not the past. Those in their 40s, who account for 22 percent of total voters, are also considered as swing voters and are another key demographic.
Park also needs to convince the 56.7 percent of Koreans who want a change of power, namely those who do not want another president from the Saenuri Party, to which Lee Myung-bak belongs. According to the progressive Hankyoreh Daily poll Monday, only 35.3 percent of Koreans want another president from the ruling party. This indicates that President Lee is a liability, not an asset, to Park.
Park is also wavering on key campaign platforms. In 2007, when she competed against Lee for the ruling party’s presidential ticket, she had vowed to cut tax, to review the high school standardization education policy and to reform the labor union of teachers. She had also said the government should be responsible for English education. She had opposed the disbandment of the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces and the U.S. transfer of wartime military control to the South Korean military.
This time, however, she omitted such sensitive issues in her campaign commitments, probably to avoid being entangled in an ideological dispute with the opposition candidates and so as not to alienate young liberal voters.
In her North Korea policy, she unveiled the so-called process to build confidence on the Korean Peninsula. Although she appears to be more flexible than President Lee in her North Korea policy, she advocates the same preconditions as Lee for inter-Korean peace and confidence-building, namely the North’s abandonment of nuclear weapons for mutual prosperity and peace.
The three presidential contenders use “democratization of the economy” to express their desire to expand welfare and reform chaebol. However, Park has yet to be specific on what she means by “democratization of the economy,” although she is less hostile to conglomerates than Ahn or Moon.
Unless she tackles these lingering questions in a convincing way to the voters, she must brace for a come-from-behind defeat. The winner will be the one who campaigns for the future, not the past.
Lee Chang-sup is the executive director of The Korea Times. Contact him at editorial@koreatimes.co.kr.