By Oh Young-jin
Assistant Managing Editor
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is emulating what his predecessor, President Lee Myung-bak, did when he was the mayor in the lead-up to becoming the holder of the nation's highest office.
Obviously, Oh, lawyer by occupation and politician by practice, is an ardent student of Lee's winning strategy and hopes to repeat it.
The 48-year-old leader of the country's biggest city is pursuing the Seoul Renaissance Project aimed at turning the entire city into a forest of skyscrapers with the same ardor Lee had in restoring Cheonggye Stream at the heart of the city. Oh is making the Shift project, aimed at providing housing for all, his top priority, much like Lee did with "New Towns," a city-wide "housing remodeling" business.
Considering his current popularity, plus his "clean" image, something President Lee lacks, Oh stands a good chance of winning not just a re-election in local elections slated for next June, but also being included in the shortlist of potential candidates in the next couple of presidential elections.
But, much like others seeking elected positions, Oh has similar problems. One such problem is coping with the gap between what voters want and what is really needed. More than not, voters become aware of it.
In Mayor Oh's case, the gap is made up of two things ― the lack of originality that has been made apparent from his attempt to repeat Lee's achievements, like Pavlov's dogs and the relative absence of global standards.
When the voters put the two together, Oh's chance of getting the presidency could be blown. Likewise, if he successfully detaches one from the other, his chances will rise.
One way to accomplish the voter "detachment" is improving his international sensitivity and informing the voters. This means more than simply taking the Seoul City press corps on his overseas junket and being caught for speaking about a half-baked plan to make bicycles a means of public transit or holding one more international event for photo ops with foreigners.
Here are two cases he may find worth studying.
The first is his plan to build a 36-story, over-100-meter building in front of Jongmyo, the venue of royal rituals in the Joseon Kingdom, one of the few UNESCO-designated World Heritage relics in Korea. Obviously, Oh is caught between a rock and a hard place. He can't go back on his inner-city redevelopment plan simply because of the growing opposition by preservationists. They claim that Korea could face the same embarrassment as Germany underwent when it lost the UNESCO recognition of the Dresden Elbe Valley for pressing ahead with its plan to construct a bridge.
Although the chances are slim that the U.N. body would go to such an extreme, the episode itself is an embarrassment to the mayor, made worse by the lack of competence among Seoul officials. They told The Korea Times: "UNESCO has no reservations about our urban beautification plan. We can lower the height of the building if we have to change the plan." It can't be confirmed whether UNESCO did indeed give Seoul assurances. UNESCO didn't reply to repeated requests for confirmation.
Instead of delegating this development versus conservation issue to his subordinates, Oh can take on this conundrum and use it as a chance to present himself as a leader who can strike a balanced tone between the two competing priorities. As an advanced country, Korea is expected to pay more attention to preservation, whether it is about historic relics or the environment.
He doesn't need to take the risk of choosing one over the other. All he has to do is explain during a press briefing how he will go about it. It may dampen criticisms he faces for being anti-preservationist after announcing a series of re-urbanization projects.
The second case is a gaffe over the name of the Seoul Design Olympiad and this could have a serious impact that could haunt him during his future campaigns.
As reported in Monday's edition of the Times, it took two years and a strongly-worded letter from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to force Oh to drop the reference to the Olympics from its forthcoming design fair. He is scheduled to announce the new name for next year's fair at the end of the one later this month.
It is public knowledge that the IOC is overly commercialized and is ready to go the extra mile to squeeze every penny from every opportunity. Oh, a lawyer, needs to remind himself of Socrates, and have respect for and abide by the law.
Although it didn't go to court, this gaffe can be taken as a sign of his ignorance about the laws he is expected to be versed in, and, in the worst case, testify his failure to respect the spirit of law or illustrate a lawyerly habit of trying to take advantage of legal loopholes. Besides, Oh should have known better, considering he is the mayor of the city that hosted the Olympics Games.
Seoul and Oh could have been spared from this embarrassment, if the case had been handled differently. Perhaps, a better way was to offer the IOC a chance to be part of the design fair, considering the IOC's problem was not Seoul's use of Olympiad in its fair's official name but Seoul's practice of plugging the fair at the Olympics. Sources said that Oh had received a report that the city's use was cleared by the IOC.
In the next presidential election or the following one, Korea needs a new leader who shares the zeitgeist with the rest of the world. Korea needs to have a leadership role on the world stage. If he wants to remain on the shortlist of potential leaders, it's high time Oh behaved like one.