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.