Long road awaits South Korea's
'Bulldozer' By Ahn Mi-young
SEOUL - What may have won businessman Lee
Myung-bak a nomination as front-runner for the
December 19 presidential elections favored to
replace left-wing incumbent Roh Moo-hyun is public
sentiment for a return to the days when South
Korea enjoyed a strong economy.
But Lee
has a tough task ahead of the election. He must
resolve infighting in his Grand National Party
(GNP) and also deal with North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il, who has the capacity and the
motivation to influence the
elections in favor of the ruling Uri (Our Open)
Party.
"Nobody knows what kind of cards
Kim Jong-il will pull out to outwit Lee's drive
toward the presidency," Professor Choi Jin at the
Korea University told Inter Press Service. "[It
will be] no surprise if Kim comes up with some
kind of card that could put the pro-North Korea
[ruling] party at an advantage at the upcoming
summit. Consider that Kim has smartly played his
security card to back up South Korea's pro-North
Korea politicians during past elections in South
Korea."
Although Lee has promised a
generous aid package to North Korea if Pyongyang
fulfills its promise to scrap its nuclear weapons
program, he has lately been questioning why the
summit has been timed to be held only two months
away from the December election. Already Lee's GNP
has criticized the Roh government's generous aid
programs and policy of engagement with North
Korea.
No meaningful pro-government
candidate has emerged to challenge Lee, but the
upcoming bilateral summit with North Korea could
make the election hard to predict. The summit,
postponed from September 28 to October 2, could
well queer the deal in favor of the ruling party.
Lee, called the "Bulldozer" for the pushy
ways that made him a successful executive at
Hyundai Engineering and Construction and as mayor
of Seoul (2002-2006), is more than up to the job.
Having risen to the top of Hyundai in his
early 30s, despite the handicap of being born in a
lower middle-class family, Lee grew to be an icon
among the salaried classes. "I will accept the
nomination as the mandate to revive the economy
and integrate the division of the society," Lee
said in his acceptance speech on Monday.
After 10 months of vicious infighting, his
win was gracefully accepted by his close rival
Park Geun-hye, 55, daughter of former president
and military strongman General Park Chung-hee, who
orchestrated the war-stricken country's rise to
become a regional economic power in the 1960s.
Analysts do not rule out a change of mind
by Park, who may yet break away to form her own
party and challenge Lee. "That could happen if Lee
fails to cope with a flurry of charges of
fraudulent real estate deals that involve his
relatives, or if Lee displeases Park's supporters
by unfair distribution of authorities between his
supporters and hers," said Professor Kim
Hyong-jun, an analyst at Myungji University.
Media reports say Lee's relatives made up
to US$28 million in real estate speculation. Such
allegations can be damaging in this country of 49
million people who must make do with the limited
land resources of the peninsula.
For
ordinary South Koreans, weary of the
business-unfriendly government of Roh, Lee has
enormous appeal as a successful businessman.
Middle-class South Koreans are often depicted as
groaning under a heavy tax burden. There is a
heavy-handed restriction on business investment,
making it hard for young workers to find jobs.
Against this backdrop, Lee has smartly
positioned himself as a business-minded chief
executive officer (CEO) who can also bring in his
skills and ability to knock the economy back into
shape in the same way he turned Hyundai around in
his 27-year stint with the business group.
With the campaign tag line "7-4-7" he has
promised to put the economy back at 7% gross
domestic product growth rate, a per-capita income
of $40,000 and the status of the world's
seventh-largest economic power for South Korea.
But there is concern around his narrow
focus. "He ought to convince the people that he
would be able to strike a balance between his
leadership as a business CEO and a potential head
of state CEO. A business CEO is task-oriented. But
a head of state must have ethical and
process-oriented value to care about. He must
watch what he says, for instance, he tends to
often blunder by speaking too bluntly in public
speeches," Professor Choi at Korea University
said.
Lee has little time for complacency.
"The race has just started. A simple tag line will
not pay off. Lee must provide a clear and concrete
vision for grassroots people to regain confidence,
and he needs to provide vision for business to be
motivational for investment. Otherwise, the
current support is such a fragile thing it can
change at any time," said an editorial in the
Donga newspaper.
Lee's success will also
depend on his quest to build what will likely
become the biggest construction project in the
history of the country - a 530 kilometer waterway
canal from Seoul in the northwest to Busan in the
southeast. There are concerns that it will
negatively impact the environment, although Lee
has said the canal will be an efficient way to
move goods and reduce pollution by reducing road
traffic.
Others think Lee needs to come up
with a better offering. "Lee could lose his
comfortable lead unless he brings to his campaign
something beyond such a fragile program like
canal. He needs to offer something more
compelling, viable and concrete, especially after
the October 2 summit, which is likely to favor the
left-wing ruling party," said Kim of Myungji
University.
Lee earned a green image by
tearing down a giant overpass in the heart of the
capital to recover a stream that had been buried
underneath for about 50 years. When he unveiled
the project in 2002 as Seoul mayor he was met with
a storm of opposition from some 220,000 small
business concerns located around the overpass.
Undaunted, he took to the streets and
indefatigably met one merchant after another,
convincing each that the project would eventually
benefit everybody. He promised to purchase some of
their products and offered loans to relocate their
businesses. "I made some 4,000 rounds of visits to
meet one businessman after another," Lee recalled
later.
Built at a cost of some $400
million, the nearly four-mile long Cheonggyecheon
stream park, opened in late 2005 with restored
ancient bridges and modern sculptures, is now one
of the most popular spots in the country.
However, there is a sad story to that
success. One trader killed himself in 2005, unable
to make a living after he lost his sales outlet in
the area. "Mr Mayor, please remember your promise
to us," he wrote in a dying memo.
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