Lee faces uphill battle on domestic, foreign issues

By Kang Hyun-kyung

President Lee Myung-bak faces multi-layered challenges, both in domestic and foreign policy, in his last year in office.

Lee needs to address inter-Korean relations, fight economic recession, and stave off negative fallout from bribery scandals involving former aides and relatives.

The National Assembly and the presidential elections in April and December respectively, will add to the challenges facing the lame duck President as the ruling party shows signs of turning its back on him.

In a New Year address delivered Monday, Lee promised to do his best to keep peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and contain the negative fallout of an economic downturn in the New Year.

“The government will do what it can to keep peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. It will help create jobs and stabilize consumer prices,” Lee said.

The dual challenge in security and the economy is tough enough to deal with.

Analysts say it will be inevitable for North Korea to play hardball on inter-Korean relations until the new regime is stabilized as doing so will help inexperienced Kim Jong-un rally support from residents at a time of leadership change.

The North is expected to step up efforts to strengthen its relations with China, Russia and the United States for aid.

Coupled with worsening inter-Korean relations, a flurry of diplomacy between Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow as well as Washington will leave Seoul on the sidelines in talks to discuss ways to denuclearize the Stalinist state.

This alleged failure in foreign policy could deal a blow to the ruling camp in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

But the foreign policy challenge is not all that Lee has to fight in his last year as president. Recent developments in domestic politics have signaled he will have a tough time this year.

Recent public opinion surveys show that support for the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) has dropped, whereas that for the main opposition Democratic Unity Party (DUP) has soared. Support for the DUP marked 30 percent or higher in polls released Sunday.

Several found GNP leader Park Geun-hye’s ratings lower than those of Ahn Cheol-soo, founder of anti-virus software firm AhnLab.

The IT mogul has not clarified whether he will run in the presidential race. Despite this, the public has shown few signs of withdrawing support for him.

Park, highly likely to run in the presidential race, began a high-stakes poker game by accepting the offer to lead the embattled GNP until the April elections.

She has recruited several outside experts for an interim emergency committee, giving them immense discretion to reform the way the conservative party works.

Under the bold reform, the daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee has tried to distance the ruling party from the unpopular President Lee as far as she can.

The new members of the committee announced they would distance the party from Lee’s now abandoned signature economic policy vision, dubbed 747. The President’s election pledge was to achieve seven percent of annual economic growth, a per capita income of $40,000, and make Korea become the world’s seventh largest economy.

Lee’s aides are uncomfortable over the GNP’s reform drive as it could undermine the businessman-turned-President’s legacy.

Worsening relations with the ruling party will also make it difficult for Lee to manage the economy this year as economic initiatives need full support from ruling party members to be passed in the National Assembly.