ed Post-election Korea

Parties need strategies after the elections

Despite the election-year euphoria over potential changes, many voters are skeptical whether the nation will be more stable, prosperous and dynamic after heading to the polls than before.

The public disillusionment grows as parties churn out half-baked and unrealistic campaign pledges, which would erode fiscal health, cause diplomatic friction, burden taxpayers, sap entrepreneurship and ultimately alienate voters.

First of all, both the ruling and opposition parties will be more populism-oriented by December than now. Their ideological orientations have moved further left. The governing Saenuri Party has shifted away from its conservatism. The liberal opposition Democratic United Party has moved further left. Although their shift reflects changing public expectations, voters question their ideological identities.

Both have lost a sense of accountability for fiscal health. Each party competes by proposing welfare policies that would either increase national debt or become unrealizable. They seldom point out Korea’s national debt has been growing fastest among OECD countries. The opposition vows to halve the number of non-regular workers over the next five years. The governing party pledges to convert 200,000 into regular workers in three years.

Urgent for social cohesion is reducing the gap between the regular and the non-regular workers. Neither party mentions how much its pledges will cost. Neither says whether they will make non-regular workers happy without eroding national competitiveness. Neither has yet to provide a magic solution on the economic polarization.

Both parties are all-out to woo young voters. The ruling party has pledged to raise the salary of conscripted soldiers 4.5 times. It has also unveiled plans to provide scholarships to students promising to work at small- and medium-sized enterprises upon graduation. The opposition will mandate conglomerates to hike employments by 3 percent annually. Large corporations will face penalties unless they meet the employment quota.

Ahead of elections, candidates seldom think about the diplomatic implications their pork-barrel pledges will have. The opposition seeks to renegotiate and possibly scrap the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. This will surely dent the Korea-U.S. alliance, increase geopolitical risks on the divided Korean Peninsula and force foreign investors to rethink putting their money into Korea. The governing party advocates the deal, however.

Both parties are jockeying to teach conglomerates a lesson after the elections. Conglomerates need to change their family-centered governance structure and should refrain from poaching on small- and medium-sized firms and the self-employed. However, they should not become the target of knee-jerk emotionalism and undue public whining at a kangaroo court.

Worrisome is the possibility that post-election Korea will undergo more clashes between voters and elected leaders than now. Foreign rating agencies might lean toward downgrading Korea in view of emerging political and fiscal risks. Diplomats here might have difficulty in preparing reports to their countries on post-election Korea.

Whichever party wins in the presidential and general elections will face trouble in managing the pent-up expectations of the people.

Now is the time for parties to devise post-election strategies.