Kim Dae-jung's homework on rebuilding his party

Kim Dae-jung's homework on rebuilding his party

The Korea Herald, Asia News Network, Seoul

President Kim Dae-jung left for Brunei Sunday to attend the
annual summit of "ASEAN plus Three" (East Asian nations).
Gripping his mind during the three-day overseas tour, however,
will not be the international agenda, but domestic politics. Upon
returning home, Kim should unveil a plan to rebuild his
Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), mired in unprecedented
disarray after another crushing by-election setback and prepare
for major elections next year.

Though not totally unexpected, the MDP's 3-0 defeat to the
opposition Grand National Party (GNP) at the Oct. 25 polls to
fill vacant parliamentary seats has left deep scars on the ruling
party. The 12-member Supreme Council resigned en masse Friday,
taking due responsibility for the election defeat. Following them
were all key officeholders, including the floor leader and
spokesman, leaving the party headquarters empty and worryingly
paralyzing its operation over the weekend.

What might anger even its most loyal supporters and bother the
average voters, however, was not the electoral defeat itself but
the split of the party in its aftermath. The long simmering feud
between Kim's longtime confidantes and "new bloods" of young,
reformist lawmakers has erupted once again, labeling each other
"corruptors" and "instigators." All would-be presidential
candidates were also busy jockeying for advantageous positions in
the name of offering remedies.

At the center of the ruling party's turmoil is the "Donggyo-
dong faction," called so after an area in western Seoul where
President Kim lived during his long days as opposition leader. As
Kim's lifetime colleagues from blue prison uniforms to the Blue
House, some of these former democracy fighters under the military
dictatorships are now criticized for domineering over all spheres
of national administration, ranging from personnel appointment to
public projects.

Every sacrifice deserves certain rewards, but enough is
enough. These Donggyo-dong people should recall their original
resolve not to take any official positions during their boss'
tenure. Kim, for his part, should have replaced long ago the aide
group that had contributed to creating his presidency with one to
help maintain it expertly. The president needs not see any
further than his own predecessor, who failed because of undue
reliance on the "secret-line" aides.

Again, however, the problems inflicting Kim and his ruling
party should not be exclusively theirs alone. Although Korea has
become the envy of most developing countries for its simultaneous
industrialization and democratization in just half a century,
such a rapid transformation in outfits has not always been
accompanied by changes of content, as shown by the 1997 financial
crisis. In politics, too, Korea has a modern democratic system,
but the people operating them are still pre-modern.

This in turn has been somewhat inevitable, considering the
nation's tumultuous modern history, marred by the so-called
"three C's" -- Confucianism, colonialism and Communism -- that
somehow do not go well with the free, capitalistic democracy it
pursues. All the negative elements of Korean politics today,
namely cronyism, nepotism, extreme confrontation rather than
compromise, rule of man instead of law, and grouping by interests
than ideology, might have derived from these.

A typical example of the last case was the recently broken
coalition between Kim's center-left MDP and far-right United
Liberal Democrats, run by his former oppressor and the creator of
the Korean CIA. The situation is little different in the
opposition GNP, a medley of progressives and conservatives. As
our ancestors did in the medieval Joseon Dynasty, we still value
connections more than content, and who is doing things rather
than what is being done.

When President Kim took office in February 1998, people
expected he would break this worn-out mould and pull the nation
out of its immature politics. So far, he seems to have failed to
meet such expectations, yielding to the limits of minority
government with regional support base. But we suspect what has
hindered Kim from conducting grander politics might be his desire
to prolong his party's reign and complete his unfulfilled goals,
economically and diplomatically.

We believe there are better ways of doing that. First of all,
Kim should overhaul his party, more boldly and rapidly, both in
personnel management and day-to-day operation. Then he had better
distance himself from party politics and remain neutral in the
next elections. Instead, Kim must focus on national
administration to complete half-baked economic reform and the
process of inter-Korean reconciliation. The nation needs a
president who can sever the vicious, unproductive political
cycle.