The
first quarter of 2012 is almost over. Where did it
go, so fast? And for those parts of the world
where the calendar is marked by four distinct
seasons - which doesn't apply to much of Asia, but
very much includes the Korean Peninsula - spring
has begun to arrive. Welcome warmth and relief,
after the rigors of chilly winter: an especially
harsh one in North Korea.
April can bring
fresh breezes, and - switching now to metaphor -
for both Koreas this looks to be the case this
time in the realm of politics. It may be largely
coincidence, but both north and south of the
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) this coming month is set
to bring very important political events,
developments, and quite probably
changes. Asia Times
Online readers may well be aware of some of these
already, but it might be helpful to consider them
all together.
The first article in this
report looked at North Korea's busy April. The
middle of this month is due to see not only that
much-hyped and much-criticized satellite launch,
but also two key meetings: the Supreme People's
Assembly (SPA) on April 13, plus a far more
important conference of the ruling Workers' Party
of Korea (WPK) whose precise date has yet to be
specified.
Frankly, the SPA is a puppet
show. South Korea used to be like that too in the
bad old days, with pretend parliaments of yes-men
endorsing whatever the military dictators cooked
up.
Not any more. For the past quarter
century the Republic of Korea (ROK) National
Assembly has been the real thing, or even the
other extreme. Indeed, the two parliaments make a
remarkable contrast.
In Pyongyang, for
just one day each year, North Korea's hand-picked
marionettes take their places in orderly rows in
the Mansudae Assembly Hall, all facing the same
way. They hardly open their mouths, except to
cheer the Leader. And they meekly vote "yes" when
told to.
Their Southern equivalents do a
proper job, meeting throughout the year. But also
sometimes an improper one. They debate fiercely,
which is as it should be - except it can get
physical.
Google "Korea Parliament", and
see what images come up. Have these pugilists no
shame? Each new batch always promises to put the
fists away and do better than the last. Not so
far.
Still, at least these battlers are
the genuine people's representatives: chosen by
popular vote in secret ballots. Unlike up North,
where spooks in smoke-filled rooms hand-pick the
bright and loyal, stick them on a single list - a
choice? are you kidding? - and then make people
dress up in the best clothes and troop out and
vote for them (100%, natch) every five years. They
don't even always bother to stage this farce on
time. The last SPA "election", in March 2009, was
seven months late - probably because of Kim
Jong-il's stroke in August 2008.
Contrast
this with South Korea. Since democracy was
restored in 1987, every election has been held on
schedule. The dates are fixed: unlike some
countries, eg Japan or the United Kingdom, no one
can call an election at will. The South has
separate polls for the executive and legislative
branches, each on a different cycle. The president
is elected every five years, and can only serve a
single term. He or she is kept in check by the
National Assembly, elected every four years.
The point of this, after two coups and 26
years of military rule, was to stop future
presidents dominating the legislature - let alone
any funny business. That has worked, but the
system is cumbersome. There's long been talk of
shifting to a pattern more like the US: a combined
election every four years, and allowing the
president a second term (without which, whatever
their merits, they all become lame ducks in their
final year: look at Lee Myung-bak now).
Now would have been a good time to make
the switch, since both elections fall this year.
But bad blood between the main parties prevented
that, so they'll be separate as usual. First up is
the parliamentary poll, on April 11 - two days
before the North's SPA meets, as it happens. This
will be watched all the more keenly as a pointer
to December 19, when the voters will turn out
again: this time, to pick the person who'll lead
them all the way through 2018.
Numbers are
another North-South difference. The SPA is huge,
with 687 members. That's more than the House of
Commons in my own country, even though the United
Kingdom's 60 million population is over twice as
numerous as North Korea's 24 million. South Korea
has 50 million people, but they are represented by
a mere 299 lawmakers. This seems rather few. Both
the North and South are unicameral: there's no
upper house, unlike in many other countries.
The 299 are chosen via a hybrid system.
Most (245) represent single-member geographical
constituencies, elected on a first-past-the-post
basis. Voters also tick a second box, which
determines the remaining 54 in proportion to each
party's share of the nationwide vote.
Last
time around, in 2007-08, the assembly elections
came a few months after rather than before the
presidential poll. In the latter, after a decade
of liberal rule, the conservative Lee won by a
landslide. For parliament the rightward swing was
less marked, but it sufficed to gain Lee's Grand
National Party (GNP) 153 seats and hence, just,
overall control of the assembly - a boon which few
previous presidents had enjoyed. The liberal
opposition, at that stage called the United
Democratic Party (UDP), won barely half as many
seats (81).
So slim a majority might look
vulnerable to by-elections, which indeed the GNP
has mostly lost. Yet four years on, the GNP -
recently rebranded as Saenuri, meaning new
frontier - has 165 seats as of March 29. Whereas
the opposition, also if less drastically renamed -
it's now the Democratic United Party (DUP) - is
still stuck on 80. Minor parties make up the rest.
How come? In 2008, the right was divided.
Lee's camp deselected a whole bunch of MPs loyal
to his rival Park Geun-hye, whom he defeated for
the GNP presidential nomination. That wasn't
smart. Politics in South Korea are pretty
personalized, so most of those given the chop ran
as independents anyway and held their seats. These
are now back in the fold. Hence the ruling party
now has more MPs than in 2008, and it still
controls the assembly.
But probably not
for much longer. Only 16 seats have to change
hands for Saenuri to lose its outright majority.
This looks almost certain, as for various reasons
- a slowing economy, growing inequality, cronyism,
North Korea - South Koreans are now disillusioned
with Lee.
That includes his own party,
which in desperation has turned to his old nemesis
Park Geun-hye. The daughter of Park Chung-hee, the
dictator (1961-1979) who turned South Korea into
today's industrial powerhouse, Park is popular
with the public; so her foes had little option.
Come December, she will almost certainly be
Saenuri's candidate for the Blue House.
Hence the boot is on the other foot, and
now it is Lee's acolytes who are being deselected.
They are crying foul, yet most have gallantly
stayed loyal to Saenuri, to Park's relief. Just
one deselected Saenuri MP has joined a newly
formed rival right-wing group, the Korea Vision
Party (K Party), which thus looks set to be
stillborn. This will be a two-horse race.
Factional sour grapes aside, the K Party
was founded on fears that in its determination to
distance itself from Lee and all his works,
Saenuri is also ditching conservatism. A new
policy platform unveiled on January 30 looks a
clear shift to the left, though this may just be
tactical populism. Job creation and social welfare
are the priorities, with talk of fair wealth
distribution and preventing abuse of power by the
chaebol (big conglomerates). Lee by
contrast, himself a chaebol man by
background, is a free-marketeer who had favored
tax cuts for the wealthy as a supposed means to
encourage more investment.
On North Korea,
the new line is to help Pyongyang join the
international community rather than trenchantly
demand its opening and denuclearization. Oddly,
the North hardly features as an election issue,
despite its two savage attacks in 2010 and its
imminent rocket launch.
That said, a
sudden burst of red-baiting suggests Saenuri's
conversion to centrist moderation is only
skin-deep. In the opposite camp the DUP has made
an electoral pact with a smaller more left-wing
group, the Unified Progressive Party (UPP). The
ROK left is always calling the right corrupt, so
it was embarrassing when UPP leader Lee Jung-hee
admitted that her supporters had rigged a
telephone ballot to secure her candidacy by lying
about their ages (there was an age quota in the
ballot). Such are the pitfalls of using new
technologies.
Amazingly, Lee did not
resign. Sections of the Seoul press speculate that
she is under orders from the NL group, a pro-North
faction once quite influential in the 1980s
radical student movement. Not a shred of evidence
has been produced, but a Saenuri spokeswoman
warned on the radio: "What will happen to our
future if the nation is led by a pro-North group?
We need to be aware."
A bit more subtly,
Park Geun-hye on March 27 described the upcoming
elections as "a choice between ideological
struggle and the livelihood of the people".
Incidentally - or maybe not - all three
politicians mentioned in the preceding paragraph
are female. The three main parties are currently
all led by women - the third being the DUP's Han
Myeong-sook. This is a welcome sea-change in the
macho milieu of politics in Seoul.
A
similar breath of fresh air is seen in Saenuri's
list of candidates for the 54 seats selected by
proportional representation. Top of the list is a
female nuclear scientist. Next is a disabled
activist. A North Korean defector ranks fourth.
Park Geun-hye comes 11th, below a female table
tennis champion (9th), while a Philippine-born
naturalized Korean (also female) places 17th. The
variety here, including political novices, is a
refreshing contrast to President Lee's rightly
criticized habit of picking personnel mostly from
a narrow circle of his close cronies.
The
DUP list, it must be said, is duller and more
predictable: lots of worthy non-governmental
organization activists. As for the UPP - no
alliance here - a number of their names are
rumored to be NL types. Be that as it may, the UPP
looks unlikely to pick up more than a handful of
PR seats.
The DUP has other problems too,
including its own equivalent of Saenuri's Lee-Park
rivalry. Here the fissure pits old guard followers
of the late Kim Dae-jung, mainly from Cholla in
the southwest, against supporters of his successor
as president, the also late Roh Moo-hyun. The
latter currently have the upper hand, to the
chagrin of the former - some of whom have set up a
splinter party, the Authentic Democrats, which
might split the liberal vote in Cholla.
The official campaign period - though in
truth it's been going on for months - kicked off
on March 29, with 924 candidates competing for 245
seats. As of now the race looks too close to call.
Most polls have Saenuri and the DUP neck and neck
in the low 20% range, with the lead varying. The
DUP was ahead a month ago, but Saenuri has gained
ground since.
Almost half the electorate
is undecided, so on the day it's the floaters
who'll swing it - and the turnout. Regionally the
same applies to Seoul and the surrounding Kyonggi
province, who have no fixed loyalties - unlike the
southwest (solidly DUP) or the southeast (mainly
Saenuri, but Roh Moo-hyun was from there so for
once the DUP may make a few inroads).
Pundits suggest that both main parties may
end up with about 130 seats. This will make life
difficult for President Lee in his final few
months, with not only an enlarged DUP trying to
thwart and frustrate him but Park Geun-hye perhaps
similarly minded: vengeance is sweet.
Almost certainly Saenuri will thus need
help to get any legislation passed. They may be
able to count on the Liberty Forward Party (LFP),
a conservative regional grouping with support in
the central Chungchong region, which will probably
retain most of its current 14 seats.
But
that may not be quite enough. Expect blandishments
to the more middle-of-the-road end of the DUP, and
perhaps some blatantly opportunist floor-crossing
as everyone jockeys to position themselves for the
race that really counts: December's presidential
election, a whole other ball game and one quite
impossible to call at this stage. May the best
woman win!
Aidan Foster-Carter
is honorary senior research fellow in sociology
and modern Korea at Leeds University, and a
freelance consultant, writer and broadcaster on
Korean affairs. He has visited South Korea some 25
times in the past 30 years, starting in 1982.
(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online
(Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
