By Andy Jackson
As a service to my fellow expatriates, today's column is a brief guide to the parties competing in tomorrow's National Assembly elections. The past six months have seen a bewildering array of party splits, mergers and defections, so it is hard to keep up with all the players without a program.
One of the first things you might notice about these elections is that issues other than President Lee Myung-bak's cross-country canal proposal are barely mentioned, but it is not that the issues are unimportant. Voters are especially concerned with the economy and, to a lesser extent, relations with North Korea and other nations.
However, with the National Assembly races taking place so soon after Lee was sworn in as president, many voters see tomorrow's elections as a means of deciding how much support they want him to have from the National Assembly.
The single largest block in the National Assembly right now is the center-left United Democratic Party.
The party has had a very dynamic history over the past few years. The old Millennium Democratic Party split into two parties in 2003 when a faction broke off to form the Uri Party. The MDP was renamed the Democratic Party. Last year, most Uri Party members split off again and formed the United New Democratic Party. The UNDP later absorbed what was left of Uri. Earlier this year, the UNDP and the Democrats merged to form the United Democratic Party.
If you think that means the party has essentially come full circle and is basically the same organization as the old Millennium Democratic Party, you are right. It makes one wonder how much more they could have accomplished with their plurality in the National Assembly if they had not used all that energy on infighting, splitting and merging.
All the polls have the UDP losing their plurality in tomorrow's elections. They have been attacking President Lee Myung-bak's controversial canal proposal in the hope of limiting their loses. They have also sought to put a fresh face on the party by replacing almost a third of their incumbent legislators with new recruits.
President Lee's center-right Grand National Party is currently the second largest party in the National Assembly (hence their number two spot on the ballot) but is poised to win an outright majority tomorrow. The real question is how big the GNP's new majority will be. But it is certainly not going to be easy going for the conservative party.
One problem the GNP has to deal with is the presence of a splinter group calling itself the ``Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance.'' As the name suggests, the origins of the group can be traced to the latent friction between Lee and former GNP Chairwoman Park Geun-hye left over from their bitter presidential nomination fight last year.
The group's core members are GNP National Assembly incumbents who failed to secure their party's nominations for their old posts. Many were denied the nominations because of past convictions for corruption or illegal engineering and the list of roughly 50 lawmakers who failed to be nominated included both supporters of Lee and Park. However, that has not prevented Park's supporters in the GNP from seeing the nomination process as a tool for reducing her influence within the party.
Park has not joined the splinter group, but that has not stopped them from prominently displaying a picture of her weeping in their campaign materials. While Park has chosen to remain in the GNP, she has refused to publicly campaign for GNP candidates. Not surprisingly, the alliance is strongest in Park's power base in the southeast.
The GNP also has to deal with former GNP presidential candidate Lee Hoi-chang's Liberty Forward Party.
The conservative party was formed during last fall's presidential race as Lee's supporters merged with the People First Party. It is leading in nine districts, mostly in Lee Hoi-chang's home region of Chungcheong, and is making the GNP struggle in other areas where it should win easily.
The LFP is poised to win the third or forth largest number of seats in the election. The LFP may also benefit from an alliance with conservative independents and members of the Pro-Park Geun-hye alliance if the GNP cannot bring them back into the fold after the elections.
The socialist Democratic Labor Party and its offshoot, the New Progressive Party, are both struggling to remain relevant but will likely be able to win a few seats in the National Assembly through proportional representation.
The moderate Create Korea Party is the essentially the personal political vehicle of failed presidential candidate Moon Kook-hyun. Moon is expected to win his race although the rest of the party will not fare as well.
Here are a couple of things to remember when looking at returns tomorrow evening.
In addition to the major parties, there are also a host of independents and minor parties running. Several independents, mostly incumbents in the southeast and southwest who failed to get their parties' nominations, have a good chance of winning.
All seats in the 299 member National Assembly are up for grabs this year, with 56 seats being elected by proportional representation (PR) and the rest in individual districts. Every voter will vote in his or her local race and for the PR list of his or her favorite party.
To qualify for the proportional representation seats, a party must gain at least three percent of the PR votes or win at least five seats in local district races.
There are an unusually high number of undecided voters this year. That, along with the volatility of parties, makes predicting this election difficult. If I had to guess, I would say that the three conservative groups would combine for about 185 seats, 15 short of a constitutional majority.
Andy Jackson teaches American government in the Lakeland College bridge program at Ansan College, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at andyinrok@lycos.com