Game Is Over?

By Tong Kim

Virtually every prediction from election polls and personal views of those interested or involved in election campaigns says Lee Myung-bak will be the winner Wednesday as the next president of South Korea.

To disprove this pervasive prediction, it will take an almost impossible offset such as Harry Truman's victory over Thomas Dewey in the 1948 American presidential election, when The Chicago Tribune, a Republican paper then, printed DEWY DEFEATS TRUMAN on the election night.

In theory and practice nobody really knows the result until there comes a point in the ballot counting when the leading candidate has received enough votes to win without opening the remaining ballots cast. Unlike the United States that has had problems with ballot casting and counting because of different time zones, Korea is in the same time zone, and the moment of the truth will instantly be revealed when the victory point is reached.

Chung Dong-young is fighting back hard to the last minute with the best of his ability and all available tactics ― including normally effective negative attacks against front runner Lee. However his desperate efforts will not change his adverse situation.

Chung certainly is a better speaker and has the ability to articulate his positions on national issues better than Lee, who confesses that he is no match for Chung in words, but he is a better doer than Chung. In any case, the times still favor Lee not because of his merit as a prospective president but the times do not seem to want Chung who has a less controversial past than Lee.

Unless some sort of miracle happens in the next two days, Chung's last-ditch effort will not improve his distant chance to win on Wednesday. With the prosecution office's exculpation of Lee Myung-bak's alleged involvement in the notorious BBK fraud case and the failure to produce a timely unified candidate among the liberal forces opposing the front runner, the game was already over.

As I wrote in my last column, this election is not about the ability or the moral character of a candidate. This election is certainly not about foreign policy ― the question of continuing the engagement policy or U.S.-Korea relations (this is good news for Washington that the alliance is not a key election issue).

None of the candidates including Lee fits the description of ``the man who is called by the times,'' a phrase the press talked about so much. But it seems that the times favor the front runner for the sake of changing the guard. The voters seem to live in an age when ``alleged'' dishonesty, corruption or illegal practices of the past do not matter.

What matters is the general atmosphere of the nation favoring putting liberal forces out of power. According to an insider of the United New Democratic Party (UNDP), his candidate has been fighting an uphill battle from the beginning in a disadvantaged political map of 70 to 30 percent: seventy percent of the voters supporting the conservative Grand National party and only thirty percent supporting the liberal parties including the UNDP and the Democratic labor Party.

The members of the UNDP seem to expect and therefore are ready to accept an election defeat. They seem more interested in the next National Assembly election that is scheduled for April next year. They have seldom shown a united will to fight and win. They even seemed at times to have given up the election.

The major reason for Lee Myung-bak's expected success is the voters' identification of Chung as one of President Roh Moo-hyun's men, who, a majority of the voter eligible population believe, ought to be responsible for the ``failure of the Roh government.'' They want a new government, and it is likely that they will have one through the election of Lee Myung-bak.

Moving beyond the election for which a record low voter turnout is anticipated, Lee will face many challenges and opportunities ahead: he must address many difficult political, economic, diplomatic and social issues that are important to South Korea's national interest and to the well-being of the nation.

Of course there is no way for any able democratic president to meet all demands from his people or to carry out all his election campaign promises. As a matter of fact, the people don't seem to care about his policy platforms, other than his campaign emphasis on an economy president, in a similar fashion to Bill Clinton's first presidential election on the theme of ``Economy Stupid.''

Unless Lee shows a kind of political leadership, which he has not demonstrated so far during the long months of his campaign ― including the period of the GNP nomination competition, he will have trouble being a successful president. Politically he will face a tough opposition party(s), whose members are traditionally effective protesters against the rulers in power.

He has to remember that many of his political associates are seeking for their own political interest in his election. Many of them seek GNP nomination so that they can run in the next general National Assembly election. Others are either interested in getting government-related positions or business awards.

As an economic president, he is advised to drop or reconsider his promised inland channel project, which is not as simple as the scenic restoration of the Cheonggye Stream running through in the heart of downtown Seoul. He will have plenty of economic reform and other projects to work on in an effort to fulfill his campaign pledges.

He is also advised to look early on at the incumbent government's engagement policy with North Korea, without wasting time as did the Bush administration for its first six years before it finally started talking to the North Koreans.

Lee is seen weak in foreign policy. Lee's North Korean policy was crafted largely by some academics for the election purpose, and it will no longer be good enough to translate into practice when he becomes president.

Perhaps he may want to study the North Korean issue as early as during a transition period toward his inauguration with the assistance of a wider group of advisors. Of course, it would be important for him to coordinate his policy with the United States during the Bush administration.

I could be wrong. What's your take?

Tong Kim is former senior interpreter at the U.S. State Department and now a research professor with Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University SAIS. He can be reached at tong.kim@prodigy.net.