Downfall of the left, resurgence of the right in 2008
This is the 60th and last in a series of articles dealing with Korean history between 1884 and now. — ED.
By Andrew Salmon
February 25, 2008, was a fine, spring day as the inauguration ceremonials got underway in the grounds of the National Assembly in Yeouido. Exit stage left: Former-president Roh Moo-hyun. Enter stage right: Lee Myung-bak, 10th President of the Republic of Korea.
Given how ferociously the two men had dueled politically, the handover was remarkably good-natured. While Lee looked understandably delighted at his ascension to the pinnacle of power, it was Roh who stood out that day.
Evincing no apparent regret or sadness, a great weight seemed to have lifted from his shoulders: At the conclusion of the handover, he appeared genuinely happy. And as remarkable as the manner of Roh’s leaving was his destination. The ex-president departed immediately for his rural hometown in the distant southeast, far from South Korea’s power center.
It was a singular moment in modern Korean history. After ten years of the most liberal, left-leaning leadership in the history of the young democracy, the left ― which had struggled for decades against the forces of the right ― had relinquished power to its old enemy. The political weather vane had swung 180 degrees.
A bright new era dawned for a regrouped right wing, but a shadow would soon fall upon the political landscape. Within 18 months of Lee’s accession, the two liberal presidents who had preceded him into office would lie dead. The fates, it seemed, were even more unforgiving than the electorate.
Roh Moo-hyun: The “Everyman President”
In 2003, Roh Moo-hyun followed “democratic warrior” Kim Dae-jung into the Blue House after winning a 2002 election campaign that took place against the backdrop of the biggest anti-American demonstrations in Korean history.
Roh’s victory over a hapless right-wing candidate Lee Hoi-chang ― the very epitome of the old-style, right-wing Korean elite ― was narrow but unquestionable.
The new president was a striking departure from previous leaders. He was no establishment figure ― in fact he had never even gone to university, almost a prerequisite for Koreans. However, he had passed the notoriously difficult bar exam, becoming a human rights lawyer in the era of Korea’s authoritarian government: His public flaying of disgraced ex-presidents Roh Tae-woo (no relation) and Chun Doo-hwan had electrified the nation.
Moving from law to politics, he had been a low-profile politician, his only significant appointment, pre-presidency, had been minister of fisheries. His victory in the presidential race surprised many: Unlike the generals or presidents of the past he was a surprisingly humble political figure.
The right, however, would not die quietly. In 2004, they unwisely impeached Rohm over technical violations of the Election Law. Roh took it calmly, keeping a low-profile. The Constitutional Court cleared him. It had been a base stunt by the right, and an angry public saw through it. The right wing’s prestige plummeted ― clearing the way, it seemed, for a revitalized and strengthened Roh to surge ahead with his agenda.
He faltered. On the plus side, he freed the prosecution ― formerly one of the presidency’s bluntest instruments ― from political control. But elsewhere, rule of law was not enforced. Many had expected Roh, the fiery ex-lawyer, to reign in the power of the chaebol, the conglomerates that dominated the economy and routinely abused their power. Nothing was done. A combined media and bureaucratic attack on a foreign fund, Lone Star, impacted Korea’s standing among international investors.
And Roh was his own worst enemy. When things did not go his way, he publicly wondered whether he was fit for leadership. Some may have found such humility and refreshing. Polls suggested that the most did not.
Then there were foreign affairs. While his supporters painted his policies as “liberal” others characterized them as “pan-Korean nationalism.” Roh continued Kim Dae-jung’s uncritical flirting with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang. Relations with Japan plummeted as an emotional public ― with the president’s apparent approval ― took to the streets again and again to protest real and imagined slights over colonial history and the disputed islet of Dokdo.
Roh astutely deployed a Korean peacekeeping brigade to Northern Iraq in support of the U.S., but Seoul-Washington relations plummeted, exacerbated by Roh’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach to statesmanship. Viewers round the world were stunned when, on live TV, Roh ― in breach of all diplomatic practice and protocol ― chided a frowning U.S. President George W. Bush over North Korean policy. Some rejoiced that Seoul was no longer being shoved around by Washington, but it was an odd way to treat Korea’s foremost ally.
His lack of sophistication horrified some Koreans, yet those who met him found Roh disarmingly down-to-earth. His PR assistant told of how charming he was during an event with immigrant brides in the countryside: He had laughed and run from stall to stall to sample the various foods the women had prepared. (It was a sign of his administration’s PR ineptness that that story never got out.)
At a press conference with foreign media, a British reporter went off-message and posed a question that had not been approved in advance. While his aides glared daggers, the president squinted at his crib sheet. There was a moment of silence - the president realized his questioner had gone off-script - then Roh grinned and ad libbed a response.
Another failing of his advisors was not permitting him to verbally joust with his many critics, for in his legal days, he had been renowned as a skilled debater. By distancing him from the public, his team obviated his most effective communication tool.
Roh’s essential decency may have been his weakness: He was personally hurt by the consistent savaging dished out by the right-wing press. This was often unfair. Although he oversaw consistent growth, anyone reading major Korean dailies during the Roh administration could have been forgiven for believing that the country was about to plunge to its economic doom.
Plagued by failure to push through policies, infighting within his party and a slew of scandals among those close to him, Roh was as lame a duck as any Korean president mid-way through his term. His ineffectiveness was compounded by his failure to push through his flagship policy: The relocation of the capital city.
Although it was widely recognized that Korea’s national assets and institutions were massively over-centralized in Seoul, Roh’s plan to create an administrative capital further south was shot down in flames by the Constitutional Court. The architect of Roh’s biggest defeat was his successor as president.
Bulldozer in the Blue House
If Roh Moo-hyun was plain Mr. Roh, Lee Myung-bak was the living, walking embodiment of the “Korean Miracle:” He personified its raw energy, its can-do spirit, its soaring ambition.
Lee had grown up in poverty, only reaching university thanks to a scholarship. Jailed during his student days for anti-Japanese protests he landed a job with a promising company: Hyundai Construction and Engineering. There, his talent and energy was noticed. He was soon a key lieutenant of the company’s founder, the legendary entrepreneur Chung Ju-young. As CEO of the firm, Lee was at the center of events as Korea climbed the economic ladder.
He stayed with Hyundai for 27 years, but after reportedly realizing that due to an accident of birth ― he was not a member of the Chung Dynasty ― he would never reach the very top of Hyundai, Lee exchanged boardroom for National Assembly.
He served two stints as an assemblyman ― and one dismissal for violations of electoral laws ― before winning the mayorship of Seoul in 2002.
In City Hall, he successfully held off Roh’s capital relocation plan, while bulldozing all opposition on the way to realizing his own flagship policy: The revitalization of downtown Seoul’s Cheongye Stream. The successful completion of that project won Lee immense kudos: It was arguably the first major Seoul public project to put urban design center stage, with the aim of upgrading the city’s look and lifestyle. It also netted him a “Champion of the Environment” award from TIME magazine ― an unusual accolade for a former construction CEO.
After a vicious dogfight with presidential hopeful Park Geun-hye, Lee won his party’s presidential ticket for the 2002 Blue House race. His central policy was an even more ambitious liquid project: The connection of four rivers and the creation of a massive inland waterway linking Seoul and Busan. But, ever the pragmatist, his less visionary platform was a strong focus on the economy, the renovation of strained Korean-American ties, and a de-focus on North Korea.
His messages resounded with an electorate fed up with the left. Brushing aside allegations of corruption, he won a landslide victory.
The left did not fade gently into the night. Three months after Lee’s electoral victory, the masses hit the streets in the carnival-style protests that had first been seen during the World Cup, and then transmogrified into the anti-American protests of 2002. As so often before, the trigger was a foreign issue: US beef imports.
On an April 2008 trip to Washington, Lee’s administration surprised the nation by permitting imports of U.S. beef ― previously halted due to “Mad Cow” scares. While this certainly was in line with his promise to upgrade US relations, it was a total surprise to the electorate, who had been told nothing of it in advance.
It did not matter that U.S. beef was now safe; rationality went out the window as the public exploded in anger fired by a TV documentary that (falsely) alleged that U.S. cattle was rife with disease. Weeks passed. Violence increased. As it became increasingly clear that the demonstrations were no longer about beef, they were an attack on Lee’s government public support ebbed.
Lee had weathered the storm: the South Korean street has been quiescent ever since.
Ironically, one of his top achievements was a legacy of Roh’s. The latter had overseen the signing of a Free Trade Agreement with the United States in 2007. Given the complications surrounding such a far-reaching deal, it was only in 2011 that the wording of the deal was finalized under Lee. It now awaits ratification.
Korea was fortunate note to have been exposed to sub-prime. Lee astutely handled the 2008 global financial crisis: Korea, after a massive and sudden dip in its markets and currency Lee grasped the helm and mastered the crisis with range of policy responses. Result: Korea became the first OECD nation to exit the crisis with plus growth rates.
Lee’s North Korea policy ― if it could be called a policy ― could be summed up as “disinterest.” Roh had overseen the creation of a joint North-South industrial zone at Gaeseong ― a far-sighted project that provided a blueprint for the long-term reindustrialization of the North Korean economy, and enabled South Korean penetration thereof. At the end of his term, Roh had also held a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, returning home with a long and promising list of potential initiatives.
While Lee kept Gaeseong running, he did not follow up on the summit initiatives. Moreover, he linked North Korean aid handouts to denuclearization. The previous, liberal policy of “all carrots, no sticks” was replaced with a policy of “all sticks, no carrots.”
North Korea reacted predictably and lethally. Its navy torpedoed a South Korean corvette in March 2010, and shelled an island in November. Fifty South Koreans died. With Lee vowing massive retaliation against future provocations, the military situation is now dicier than at any time since 1994, when Washington was narrowly dissuaded from bombing North Korean nuclear facilities.
In 2009, however, a different kind of tragedy had hit Korea.
Three Months, Two Funerals
It was a fine Saturday morning, when the news broke on May29: Ex-president Roh Moo-hyun had committed suicide, leaping to his death from a cliff near his home. Roh had been facing prosecution investigations into allegations that he and/or his family had accepted some US$6 million worth of bribes while in office. He was 62.
As the nation went into shock, the left furiously blamed the Lee government for hounding Roh to his death. The accusations did not stick; if anything, Roh’s suicide suggested guilt. (Following his death, all investigations into his family were halted.) Emotional scenes took place during his funeral, but supporters were unable to turn Roh into a martyr to any political advantage.
Then, on Aug. 18, Kim Dae-jung ― Nobel Peace Prize winner, democratic warrior, architect of rapproachment with North Korea ― followed Roh into history. He was eulogized as one of the greatest-ever Koreans, but this time the public, while saddened, was not shocked. Kim, at 83, had been in fragile health.
The passing of Kim and Roh marked the end of an era ― an era of hope for North-South relations, and an era of democratization across South Korean society. Arguably, the former policies failed, but the latter have, in many ways, succeeded. Kim and Roh’s legacy is a South Korea that is more open, egalitarian, tolerant and diversified than ever before.
However, the political damage caused by the two deaths was immense: Korea’s left had lost its most prestigious figures ― its ex-presidents and elder statesmen ― in the space of three months.
Mourning ended. Life continued. Defying predictions that his distant leadership style and penchant for unilateral decision-making would alienate the electorate, and despite the troubling North-South situation; Lee’s approval ratings remain in the 50-percent range. He appears to be holding at bay ― at least for now ― the “lame duck” syndrome that impacted his three predecessors in the second half of their presidential terms.
But cracks have appeared in the political scene. In summer 2010 local elections, the left swept the field, creating an unusual political dynamic: While the right retains power on the national level, the left runs the show locally.
In terms of the Blue House, however, the right looks unassailable. It boasts two very able potential candidates for the late 2012 presidential race, while the left fields nobody with obvious potential as an election winner. Given one weakness of the Korean electoral system ― the constitutional requirement that no president can run for a second term, granting the incumbent a limited time window to push through strategic policies ― a second right-wing president might be a plus: he (or she) could finalize the policies of his (or her) predecessor.
This situation might secretly satisfy conservatives. It should not. The lack of a viable opposition challenge for the presidency does not bode well for Korea’s mid-term democratic health.