A Sunken Ship & a President’s Suicide: the Dynamics of a South Korean Election
Politics Add commentsBy Iwazaru
The local elections here in South Korea to pick about 4,000 posts, including provincial governors, mayors, councilors and education chi
efs took place on Wednesday and the results were watched closely by many as a harbinger of the political future and a referendum on the conservative government led by President Lee Myung-bak.
As I pulled up a chair next to Korean colleagues at one of the lunchroom tables in my school, I heard mentions of the results which had the liberal Democratic Party (DP) winning seven mayoral and gubernatorial posts, while the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) secured six seats, including Seoul mayor, according to preliminary results.
The lead-up to the elections was fraught with interesting external elements
including the sinking of the Cheonan naval ship, the one-year anniversary of the suicide of former liberal president Roh Moo-hyun and several policies of President Lee (specifically a project to develop four rivers and a plan for a “new” educational, scientific and business city south of Seoul).
“What happended?” I asked the middle-aged Korean man sitting across from me at the lunch table who teaches German grammar. “People are upset that the president is lying about the Cheonan,” he answered, continuing the assertion he had been making that the ship was not sunk by North Korea. (He offered no alternate theory but it was clear he thought the U.S. military was involved and he pointed me toward one conspiracy theorist.) When I mentioned that apparently many young people had come out to vote, he said “Of course, the young people are smart and know that the president is lying and pursuing bad policies.”
The victory for the DP indicates any number of things—some known and unknown—but certainly it is a mid-term referendum on President Lee that could throw a wrench in his policies and it would seem to fly in the face of hard-line North Korean policy. Perhaps people aren’t so angry about the sinking of the ship as B.R. Myers points out sagaciously in his “South Korea’s Collective Shrug.”
Understanding modern South Korean politics req
uires a deeper understanding of regional loyalties, sympathy for and ethnic connection with the North, and the influence of the two former presidents Roh and Kim Dae-jung. And that is just the beginning.
From here, how things will play out is uncertain but President Lee is certainly not celebrating and the walls of the Blue House might start whispering “lame duck” as the opposition party finds its sails filled with the winds of victory. As my liberal Korean colleague said of the 2012 presidential election, “there is a change coming.”
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June 3rd, 2010 at 2:01 am
I’ve always thought that one of the most interesting parts of the South Korean presidency is that a 1-term limit means they are all lame ducks.
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:01 am
But some lamer than others.
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:13 am
Some are bigger “targets” than others especially if the “debts” grow too large in the eyes of the public. Such is the circus.
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:36 am
This result is not tht surprising. every korean I’ve spoke with recently didn’t believe a word of the government official theory about the Cheonan. Some also think Roh Moo-hyun has been killed. It makes a lot of doubts. That’s just about the most well known issues. Hopefully people are less dumb than some governments think.
June 3rd, 2010 at 9:09 am
[...] good read regarding the elections can be found here, at Three Wise Monkeys webzine. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)General Election [...]
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I can’t believe what I am hearing on the street, “America did it”. “Lee Myung Bak just wants power…”
It’s like time to sing the scumbunch song: ‘Don’t make me deal with something that is uncomfortable… I want to go on the piss in Thailand with a favorable exchange rate: well, that is if i finish me bleedin’ contract and get paid from the Hagwon.’
It’s time to post up the Old “Obama in The Ghetto” piece and update this story on Monday. Calling out the foreigner knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, addled-by-facebook, paint-me-blue-cause I’m a pagan crowd is exactly what, Hear No Evil Speak No Evil See No Evil is all about. And believe you me: there will be blood…
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