Kim Dae-jung finally wins presidency

Two months ago The Jakarta Post Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin reported that Kim Dae-jung could not be counted out in the presidential election which was then beginning (The Jakarta Post Oct. 23, 1997 "Kim leading election campaign"). The article reported that Koreans were calculating that "Kim Dae-jung, probably in tandem with Kim Jong-pil, might well be the winner in December's poll". The following article examines whether Kim's victory on Dec. 18 signifies political change -- or a further extension of the Korean political status quo.

HONG KONG (JP): After a long night of cliff-hanging suspense and uncertainty, and then amidst scenes of euphoria, veteran politician Kim Dae-jung, who has struggled for democracy in Korea and in Asia through more than four decades, was finally rewarded by being elected President of the Republic of Korea at his fourth attempt.

The possibility of two months ago has become the accomplished fact of today. Kim Dae-jung, the old never-say-die warhorse of Korean politics, has become the first opposition leader to be elected president in Korean history.

While Kim's victory is being seen, almost universally, as an affirmation of the need for change by the electorate, the win has the contrary result of further extending the longstanding dominance of the "Three Kims" in South Korean politics.

This is hardly a clear signal of change. When Kim Young-sam won the presidency in 1992, it was widely asserted that the "Three Kims Era" was finally over. Now, to the contrary, when President Kim Young-sam leaves office on Feb. 25 next year, Kim Dae-jung will be sworn in as president and will almost certainly appoint Kim Jong-pil to be prime minister once again, as he has promised to do.

As anticipated by The Jakarta Post, when the results came in through Thursday night there was never any suggestion of a landslide either for Kim Dae-jung and his New Congress for New Politics (NCNP), or for his main opponent, the leader of the Grand National Party (GNP), former prime minister Lee Hoi-chang.

Lee led initially but Kim, never far behind, soon took over the lead and never relinquished it, before winning narrowly by 390,557 votes out of 26 million votes cast.

Kim Dae-jung will, like his two predecessors, be a minority president, with 40.3 percent of the vote, while Lee secured 38.7 percent. But the key vote throughout the night, securing Kim's election, was that obtained by the New Party By The People (NPP) led by former Governor Rhee In-je, whose vote hovered just short of twenty percent of all votes cast.

So, in the end, the election was a re-run, in reverse, of the Korean presidential election of 1987, the first free election held after two decades of military-backed authoritarian rule.

In 1987, longtime oppositionists Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young- sam made the self-destructive move of both trying to defeat the ruling party's Roh Tae-woo. Together their combined vote was over fifty percent. If there had been a run-off election after the then third-placed Kim Dae-jung withdrew, Kim Young-sam would have become president in 1987 -- and Kim Dae-jung might well have succeeded him in 1992.

Now, in 1997, it has been the turn of the longtime ruling party to make the self-destructive move, with Lee and Rhee both trying to defeat Kim Dae-jung. Together their combined vote was 57.9 percent of the total, a remarkable achievement given that the GNP and the NPP are both spin-offs from the ruling New Korea Party (NKP) which, under President Kim Young-sam, has led South Korea into the worst economic crisis in its recent history.

Six months ago South Korea was the eleventh largest economy in the world. Today, it has declined, as a result of depreciation of the won and decline of the stock market, to be twentieth. In most countries, these circumstances would have led to a massive decline in support for a ruling party.

In part, the large vote of the two establishment candidates reflects the deep suspicion and antipathy with which Kim Dae-jung is still regarded. His first and foremost task will be to unify the country behind his leadership, thereby making himself into a majority president capable of coping effectively with the economic crisis. (A good beginning in this task will be made today with the promised release of former presidents Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan, convicted for corruption and for their role in the 1979 coup in the wake of the assassination of former president Park Chung-hee).

Such is the division within the former ruling party, it is by no means certain that the GNP's Lee would have won, if there had been a run-off election after the elimination of Rhee (19.3 percent) and four minor candidates who together secured 1,8 percent of the total vote. But a run-off, if it had taken place, also might have united the anti-Kim forces.

The key critical development which gave Kim Dae-jung the prize he has sought for so long with such tenacious, and sometimes short-sighted, ambition was not merely the divisions within the ruling party. Success also came as a result of Kim's ability to increase his share of the vote to 40.3 percent in the last weeks of the campaign.

Under new regulations, no public opinion polls have been published in Korea since the official election campaign began on Nov. 26. When the last polls were published prior to the cut-off point, they tended to show that Kim Dae-jung retained a slight lead over Lee and Rhee but had only around 35 percent support.

A key electoral factor in improving this position was the alliance with conservative personalities, carefully crafted by Kim Dae-jung, notably with former prime minister Kim Jong-pil.

On the one hand, the Kim Dae-jung-Kim Jong-pil alliance has served to diminish the suspicion with which Kim Dae-jung has long been regarded in conservative circles, not least because of the black propaganda directed against him by past authoritarian regimes. On the other hand, the alliance has widened Kim's support in other regions, besides his own strong base in the two Cholla provinces.

Prior to the election Kim Dae-jung's left-of-center supporters worried that his Cholla support might weaken as a result of his alliance with a conservative like Kim Jong-pil. Given that, as the founding director of the formerly notorious Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), Kim Jong-pil had once been responsible for plots against Kim Dae-jung's life, the alliance was said to be too opportunistic.

In the event there was no need to be concerned. Kim's extraordinary electoral lockhold on Cholla loyalty was again reflected his remarkable 97.3 percent support in the city of Kwangju, 94.6 percent in South Cholla province and 92.3 percent in North Cholla.

But as Cholla people in Kim's home bailiwick, and also in Seoul, rejoiced and danced in the streets, and opened bottles of champagne or rice wine, there was a big difference: this time around, their man had, at long last, won.