A Year Later

Harmony and Hope Remain Mere Lip Service

The Lee Myung-bak administration has called the reign of its two predecessors ``10 lost years." It is adding one more.

President Lee, who was elected a year ago Friday, spent all of 2008 nullifying most of what the previous two governments have done, good or bad, instead of unfolding his own plans or visions.

It is natural that the shift of political power result in a reshuffle of key governmental posts, which in turn leads to changes in policies. But the Lee administration has been trying to change the government organization itself and even the nation's history. If this should happen every five or 10 years, where will the Republic of Korea go?

People elected the former construction company CEO, believing his claims that he would not focus on ideology but revive the economy with pragmatic principles. As we saw, however, the President has done exactly the opposite.

Ironically enough, Lee's two biggest hardships originated in the United States, which takes overwhelming priority in his diplomatic policy. As is well known, Lee's first big mistake was his decision to re-import controversial U.S. beef products without sufficiently listening to public opinion, reflecting a less than democratic way of doing things ingrained deeply in his mindset formed during his formative years in the 1970s and '80s.

Cowered by the people power demonstrated by two months of candlelit vigils, Lee apologized twice, only to turn doubly repressive and undemocratic once the worst was over later. Now the government is moving to punish even demonstrators hiding their faces with masks, which was allowed even during the three decades of dictatorial rule by generals-turned-presidents. Germany and the United States are also prohibiting in part veiled demonstrators, probably because of memories of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Are Korean demonstrators anywhere near close to them?

President Lee and his aides are attributing their dismal economic performances to the U.S.-triggered worldwide financial turmoil.

Even before the global recession landed on Korea, the domestic economy had been reeling under flip-flopping economic policies, cited by foreign news media as among the most shaky economies in Asia. A notorious case in point was the government's foreign exchange policy, in which Seoul started with artificial depreciation of the Korean won to bolster exports, turned around to its appreciation amid looming inflation and then came back to non-intervention, only sharply denting its reserves while attaining nothing.

The worldwide economic crisis seems to be rather serving as an excuse for the Lee administration to push ahead with its political, economic and social agenda without adequately consulting the general public, let alone the opposition parties, as shown by the ongoing railroading of various controversial bills at the National Assembly.

Most voters cannot understand why the parliamentary ratification of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement should be so urgent as to paralyze the entire Assembly proceedings while their U.S. counterparts are not giving much attention to it, at least for the time being.

The governing camp seems to think it only has to bring minority opposition parties and a handful of ``lefties" under control to do whatever it pleases: It is seriously mistaken.

Voters brought the conservative party back to power not because of its ideology but out of the weariness of ``no-action-talk-only" liberals. They are witnessing the conservatives as little different in ability, and far worse in the way they administer state affairs.

At Friday's ceremony, the ruling camp called for ``harmony and hope." If that slogan continues to remain lip service, it will help to revive the seemingly hopeless liberals, who will then be lamenting over five lost years.