Stunning Incompetence

By Andy Jackson

President Lee Myung-bak has demonstrated less than stellar political skills over the first several months of his administration.

The ham-handed way in which his transition team dealt with the ongoing Roh administration and selected cabinet ministers, the mismanagement of relations with Park Guen-hye resulting in a split of GNP just before last April's National Assembly Elections and his utter failure to effectively communicate with the public during the recent beef protests will serve as a cautionary tale for future administrations.

Lee has done such a poor job of working with others in the Korean political system that new Grand National Party Chairman Park Hee-tae, who is regarded as a close ally of Lee's, felt compelled to admonish Lee, saying he ``failed to communicate effectively with the ruling party."

Lee has paid for his mistakes with a plunge in popular support over the past several months. However, his poll numbers have recently stabilized and even shown some signs of improvement.

His popular support, which was in a Roh Moo-hyun-like freefall just a few weeks ago, has ticked back up and is now in the mid 20s. While still a far departure from the support he enjoyed just a few months ago, it is respectable by the standards of recent Korean political history.

Lee at least partially owes his less-awful-than-he-deserves position to the main opposition Democratic Party. Their continued bumbling since Lee was elected president last December has been the real lifeline that kept Lee from drowning in a sea of his own missteps.

Heading into the April 9 National Assembly elections, the heavy handed way in which President Lee's supporters in the Grand National Party dealt with supporters of inter-party rival Park Geun-hye led to a split of the party. Combined with the strength of Lee Hoi-chang's Liberty forward Party in the central part of the country, the conservative vote was divided among three different groups. All the Democrats had to do was get their base voters out on election day to hold their own and win at least 100 seats.

However, the Democrats, bogged down by their own intra-party conflicts, failed to effectively press their case on issues that would have differentiated themselves from the three conservative parties. That failure contributed to a record low voter turnout and allowed the conservatives to collectively gain 197 seats in the National Assembly, just a few shy of a constitutional majority.

The Democrats' failure during the National Assembly elections pales in comparison to their ineffectiveness during the recent anti-American beef protests.

Their decision (along with the Democratic Labor and Liberty Forward parties) to boycott the National Assembly over the beef issue was a dereliction of the duties they were elected to perform. Their actions meant that there was no chance for the Korean people's elected representatives to deal with American beef, or other pressing issues, within the framework of the constitution.

The Democrats' choice to refuse to perform their duties was not only unethical; it also turned out to be bad politics.

By boycotting the National Assembly, the Democrats cut themselves out of the one forum where they were uniquely positioned to oppose the beef agreement and present themselves as champions of the Korean left. Instead they found themselves playing understudy in the protest game to organizations like the Korean Teachers and Educations Workers Union and People's Solidarity for Social Progress.

Even more damnable, the Democrat's dereliction of duty caused ten of thousands of ordinary citizens to at least temporarily enter the embrace of those extremist organizations because they saw no one within the democratic system whom they believed would serve their aspirations.

The result has been that the Democrats continue to lag behind the Grand National Party in public support, despite President Lee's many difficulties. The latest data from polling firm Realmeter has the Democrats 13 percent behind the GNP.

Perhaps the saddest spectacle over the past several months has been the degeneration of former Democratic Party (then named the United Democratic Party) co-chair Sohn Hak-kyu.

Maybe the stress of the past 18 months, which included two failed presidential nomination attempts and the ignominious defeat the Democrats endured in legislative elections under his leadership, had gotten to Sohn but the man who was once respected as a moderate politician has been reborn as a fear monger and demagogue.

While talking about the beef issue in early May, Sohn demonstrated that he knew the anti-American beef protests were largely based on fear and rumor when he noted that ``Public perception is no less important than rational judgment" on the issue of American beef imports.

Despite that knowledge, Sohn led his party down the path of demagoguery and irrelevance rather than seeking to close the evident gap between public perception and rational judgment, as evidence by his declaration on May 30; ``Do not even dream about fooling the public into eating dangerous American beef.'' The old Sohn Hak-kyu would have at least sought a compromise that all sides could live with.

The Democrats have elected new party leaders and finally ended their ill-advised boycott of the National Assembly last week. I hope they can learn to be an effective but loyal opposition, both for their sake and for the health of Korea's Democracy.

Andy Jackson teaches American government in the Lakeland College bridge program at Ansan College, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at andyinrok@lycos.com