SEOUL - Some conservatives, not publicly
but not all that privately either, had quite a
cynical response to South Korea's bitter
disappointment over the failure to win the bid for
PyeongChang to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
President Roh Moo-hyun, having gone to
Guatemala City to proselytize for the bid in a
blaze of upbeat publicity, will now return a
bedraggled figure, apologizing for disappointment
and failure while getting on with the humdrum
business of politicking
for
the presidential election in December, while the
Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi basks in its
glory.
Roh, of course, is not a candidate,
thanks to the 1987 "Democracy constitution" that
limits every Korean president from then on to
single five-year terms after years of
quasi-military dictatorship, but he would dearly
like to pass on a certain legacy to a successor
committed to more or less the same policies.
Success in Guatemala City would have been
a tremendous bonus –a chance to parade before the
Korean public on television, in public
appearances, taking credit for having propelled
Korea yet again into the big time of global sports
against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who made
it down to Guatemala after hug-and-make-up talks
with President George W Bush on the Maine coast.
"That's good news this morning," said a
Korean conservative, calling after watching
International Olympic Committee president Jacques
Rogge open the envelope and announce "Sochi" -
broadcast live at the height of the morning rush
on all Korean TV networks. "What good news?" was
my response. "Didn't you hear about the Winter
Olympic bid?"
"That's the good news," said
the caller. "It will hurt Roh and his friends
politically." Or at least, he said, "He can't come
back here and act like a hero."
Indeed,
when Roh does return, it will all be to business
as usual, angling for the nomination of a man akin
to him in philosophy and politics. But a
nomination by whom is indeed the question. Roh's
"ruling" Uri party is in tatters, the Democratic
party of his predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, is now a
marginal regional grouping from Kim's stronghold,
the southwest Cholla region, and the people
identified as left-of-center on the political
spectrum are now trying to band together behind a
single candidate, one who could shock the
conservatives, counting finally on returning to
power after a decade in opposition.
Pictures of at least half a dozen
possibilities stare from the papers in a political
game that does more to bore than inspire the
electorate.
Sohn Hak-kyu, the former
governor of Kyonggi province, covering the region
around Seoul and Incheon, both independent cities,
is believed to have Kim's backing, who may see him
as the candidate most likely to unite disparate
voters. He is, after all, a defector from the
conservative Grand National Party and may pull
over some conservatives – that is, those who don't
revile him as a turncoat.
Lee Hae-chan,
former prime minister, earned a reputation as a
leftist and softliner on North Korea, a record
that may attract the same crowd that forms much of
the core of those who supported Roh and Kim in the
past two elections but may turn off millions of
voters as well.
Chung Dong-young, former
unification minister, pursued the same soft line
toward North Korea as unification minister – and
has faded to semi-obscurity after resigning from
that post in hopes of turning that record into a
campaign for president.
There's even a
remote possibility that two women could run for
president. Han Myeong-sook, who also served as
prime minister, is not giving up the nomination on
the "single candidate" ticket, leaving open the
distant possibility that she could face Park
Geun-hye, daughter of the late dictator Park
Chung-hee, who's been campaigning hard for the
Grand National Party nomination.
In the
maelstrom of Korean politics, it's always possible
that more than two main candidates will emerge.
Park, if she fails to get the nomination, may yet
refuse to support the conservative front-runner,
Lee Myung-bak, the former Seoul mayor who first
displayed his executive acumen as the hotshot
young chairman of Hyundai Engineering and
Construction a generation ago.
Right now
the two are making a rather forced show of burying
some of their differences while their supporters
avidly search for ways to vilify the other. Lee
Myung-ak, having amassed a small fortune while
rising to the top of Hyundai Construction in its
heyday as a global powerhouse with big projects
from the Middle East to Asia to North America and
then having served a term as mayor of Seoul, is
most vulnerable. Just how did he manage to obtain
those half dozen lavish residences, anyway?
So vulnerable is Lee that his popularity
rating, a short while ago around 50%, now hovers
just below 40%, according to a poll by Chosun
Ilbo, Korea's biggest paper and a leading
conservative voice. Park Geun-hye, with not much
scandal to explain away other than the dictatorial
excesses of her father, assassinated by his
intelligence chief in 1979 after 18 years of
increasingly oppressive rule, now is building on a
popularity rating of nearly 30%.
For that
matter, Roh's own popularity rating, in the
single-digit level for a while last year, has
somehow managed to creep above 30%. No longer may
it be said that he is less popular in Korea than
is Bush in the US, where Bush's rating at last
report had fallen below the 30% level.
So
it's always possible, in this volatile political
environment where all things are always possible
if not probable, that Roh's man, or someone whom
Roh can at least count on not to turn the clock
back on his policies, will win a surprise victory
after all. A three or four-sided campaign –Lee and
Park against each other and a couple of those
left-of-center faces –might be just the thing Roh
needs to perpetuate his programs.
But what
a break a PyeongChang bid would have been. Now
about all that Roh can hope for is that North
Korea will kindly do as promised and shut down its
five-megawatt "experimental" reactor at Yongbyon
when the team from the International Atomic Energy
Agency gets there in a couple of weeks to
supervise the whole process.
Roh can't
seem to wait for those inspectors to arrive. Why
else would South Korea have resumed sending rice
to North Korea? The first few thousand of 400,000
tons went out as promised on June 30, and now
Korea is saying the first few thousand tons of
50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, the North's reward
for making good on the reactor shutdown, will be
on its way in a week.
The nuclear story,
though, may not be all that exciting either. What
can Roh get that would make everyone forget
PyeongChang and burnish his image –and that of his
candidate, whoever that candidate may be –in time
for the election? How about a summit with Kim
Jong-il, the first inter-Korean summit since Kim
Dae-jung flew to Pyongyang for the first-ever
meeting of North and South Korean leaders in June
2000.
It may be a long shot, but Kim
Jong-iI appeared at least to be stepping in the
right direction when he actually condescended to
see visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi
the other day. Not only that, he was quoted as
citing "signs of easing on the Korean Peninsula"
while urging "all sides" to "implement the initial
actions" of the February 13 agreement on giving up
his nukes.
Such words are no consolation
for losing PyeongChang –but can only help as Roh
casts about for a crowning achievement with which
to end what many people in South Korea seem to
regard as a mediocre record since his own surprise
nomination and victory in 2002.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been
covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces
in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years. (Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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