Cutting the circle of corruption in Korea is a mission impossible

Cho Se-hyon, Journalist, The Korea Herald, Asia News Network, Seoul

Most people were self-righteously indignant and angry with politicians and political parties for soliciting, even extorting, hundreds of millions of won from big business groups during the last presidential election campaign.

For a while early last month, the prosecution kept on announcing partial results of its investigation into the collusion between businessmen and politicians, especially those in the opposition. And we were all flabbergasted by the astronomical amounts of sleazy money that allegedly changed hands from big businessmen to politicians.

By the way, in what appeared to be highly calculated announcements aimed at exposing politicians' wrongdoing with the upcoming general elections in mind, the government appeared to be concentrating on revealing how much money the opposition Grand National Party had received from the business groups.

The piecemeal revelations went for weeks, if you remember, until the GNP presidential candidate, Lee Hoi-chang, came forth and said that he would take responsibility for all the illegal funds his party had amassed for his campaign. Lee then asked President Roh Moo-hyun to come clean as he had and disclose how much money he and his party had received from big businesses.

Thereupon, Roh said that the political contributions, including illegal funds, his camp received from businessmen, could not have been more than one-tenth of those received by the opposition party, implying that a smaller amount somehow would make him less guilty, or, to put it another way, cleaner than his opponent.

As though on cue, the prosecution disclosed last week that the questionable money President Roh and his aides received during and after the election campaign amounted to nearly one-tenth of the total amassed by the GNP.

But what we should be concerned with here is not how much more or how much less those politicians and their parties collected from big businesses, but why they needed so much money and where they spent it. These questions, I'm afraid, may sound stupid because, we all know, they spent it to get elected to public office, including the office of president.

Nevertheless, people were upset and angry as though politicians had extorted money just to fatten their own bellies. Indeed, some of them have done so. But the phase when politicians can make money comes after they get elected. In order to get elected, they have to spend money first. And for that activity, the word, "campaign," is too refined an expression because many simply spent the money to buy votes.

I don't know how long it has been going on, but it has become a common and accepted practice for voters -- individually or in groups -- to demand money from politicians and political parties in exchange for their votes. In other words, citizens sold their votes to the highest bidder, the one among many who gave them the most.

Since politicians don't have money or don't want to spend their own money, they get it from big businesses through intimidation or with a tacit understanding that when they get elected, they would use their influence to pay them back.

When some corporations actually began tottering on the brink of bankruptcy, having been bled so much by the corrupt system or managed poorly by the colluding owners, the politicians, who were then in high government positions, came to their rescue by providing them with lucrative deals or by infusing enormous amounts of public funds, which was collected from taxpayers.

Thus, a vicious circle of corruption was formed and, whenever an election was held, dirty money went round and round from businessmen to politicians to voters and back to businessmen. And this, I am ashamed to say, has been the established pattern by which pseudo-democratic politics has been practiced in this country for decades.

The collusion between businessmen and politicians was firmly entrenched in our society in the early 1970s when government and business leaders worked closely together for the nation's rapid economic development. Big corporations provided the authoritarian rulers with money that enabled them to perpetuate their power while the generals-turned-politicians helped businessmen to make more money. And the general public went along as a little of the money trickled down to them as well.

Meanwhile, those left-leaning politicians who claimed to be fighters for democracy, waged their struggle against what they called "the fascist dictators," finally winning their battle with the election of Presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung. Both promised to clean up politics by introducing sweeping political reform. But their administrations, too, failed miserably. In fact, corruption got worse as they maintained their ties with big business. The "democratic" leaders turned out to be just as arbitrary and authoritarian as their predecessors whom they had condemned as dictators.

At this moment, representatives of the people are deliberating various reform bills in the National Assembly, while President Roh and his supporters, claiming to be progressive reformists, are said to be working to clean up politics. But the prospects for success are almost nil. They also have vested interests to protect.

If we really want to clean up politics, it is up to the voters -- one of the main players in the dirty game of politics -- to make up their mind and cut off the circle of corruption by refusing to sell their votes and by electing upright persons as their representatives.

Unless and until the voters, and indeed the general public, become clean, we will never be able to get rid of corruption from Korean politics.