Kim Dae-jung finally wins presidency

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.