Some Predictions for 2009

By Andy Jackson

With all that has gone on this year, it would be easy to write a column reviewing the events of 2008. However, being a forward-looking guy, I think it would be more interesting to make a couple of easy predictions for the coming year.

1. The GNP will remain Korea's most popular party.

As Winston Churchill might have said about Korean politics: the Grand National Party is the worst political party in Korea except for every other political party in Korea.

The GNP has a couple of things going for it that gives it a bit of an edge over the main opposition Democratic Party. It is the center-right party in a country where self-described conservatives slightly outnumber progressives. It also benefits from greater regional support.

However, the main reason the GNP will remain Korea's most popular party in 2009 is that they actually show up for work on a regular basis. Between various boycotts and sit-ins, the Democrats seem to spend more time protesting than doing the work they were elected to do.

With the recent occupation of the main floor of the National Assembly building, the Democrats and their allies in the minor Democratic Labor Party have decided to spread the spirit of not working to the rest of the legislature.

They have justified their action by claiming that the GNP was planning to railroad ``evil bills" through the assembly but they are attempting to use force to overturn the will of Korean voters. That is certainly a strange way of protecting democracy.

What is clear is that the Democrats are trying to recreate the magic of 2004, when the then-named Uri Party similarly occupied the National Assembly chamber to try to prevent a vote on the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun. The Korean public felt the same way about the impeachment and made Uri the majority party in national assembly elections one month later.

But the situation is different today. While the Democrats may shore up their support among progressives through their little legislative putsch, they are likely to alienate moderate voters in the long term.

The GNP should allow a fuller review of the pending bills, which is the Democrats' chief demand. The legislature is supposed to be a deliberative body.

However, in no democratic system worthy of the name could the 90 legislators in the various progressive parties prevent the 172-member GNP, along with 26 members of other conservative parties, from passing bills that they want to pass.

If the GNP overreaches (and they almost certainly will), then the Korean people will make a correction in the next election, just as they did against the GNP in 2004 and against the Democrats last April.

While there will be fluctuations in the parties' relative popularity in response to events, expect the GNP to remain on top for much of the year.

2. Candlelight Vigil 2.0 ― coming soon to a street near you.

There will be large-scale protests this spring and early summer; that I can promise. What will the protests be about? It doesn't matter. With conservatives in charge in the National Assembly and the Blue House, progressives will be hitting the streets for some reason or another.

They will be organized by the usual suspects, for the most part: Unions (especially the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union) and leaders of professional protest organizations like People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy. How many people turn out for the protests will depend on how well those groups do in motivating people to attend their bloc parties.

Since the import of American beef has resumed and thousands of school children have yet to die from eating it, protest organizers will likely have to find another issue to get people out. The best bet at this point would be a grab bag of small issues which, when put together, will be presented as evidence of President Lee Myung-bak's ``anti-democratic arrogance." Some likely issues include oldies-but-goodies like trade and labor disputes, education reform and anti-Americanism.

In any case, mark these dates on your new 2009 calendar and avoid doing business in downtown Seoul at those times if at all possible, since there will likely be large protests: May 18, June 10, June 13 and June 15. Those are the dates of various anniversaries that progressives like to use to get more protesters out. There will likely be other major events during the May to June annual protest season, so be sure to check your local forecast before heading downtown during that period.

I will leave you with one more prediction: A major breakthrough will be declared in the first half of 2009 in the ongoing nuclear negotiations with North Korea, resulting in new concessions and other goodies for Pyongyang. How long that appearance of a breakthrough will last depends on how long Washington is willing to suspend disbelief and pretend that Pyongyang is complying with the deal.

How long would that be? That I cannot guess. Those Americans are an inscrutable lot.

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