Kim leading thanks to some luck

This is the second of two articles by Harvey Stockwin analyzing Kim Dae-jung's prospects in the upcoming Korean election.

HONG KONG (JP): So what has changed now to give Kim Dae-jung an obvious fighting chance? For once, he has had some luck, something which seemed to elude him in previous campaigns.

First and foremost President Kim Young-sam's administration badly discredited itself. It sought to purify Korean politics of corruption, then was found to be itself impure. Had that not happened, then almost certainly the New Korea Party (NKP) candidate would be, by now, well ahead in the polls and Kim would be trailing in second place once more.

Second, the ruling NKP has additionally helped Kim Dae-jung by nominating a flawed candidate, Lee Hoi-chang. At first, Lee seemed the perfect choice to replace Kim Young-sam, having the reputation of being a real "Mr Clean" in the Korean political arena.

Then it transpired that he had used political influence to shield his two sons from compulsory military service. His reputation immediately sank and has not yet revived.

So, third, the man Lee defeated for the NKP nomination, former Governor Rhee In-je, has re-entered the presidential race and is currently running second to Kim Dae-jung, and ahead of Lee, in the public opinion polls.

Fourth, for the first time, the presidential race has become a multi-candidate affair. Currently there are six candidates which means in effect that the next leader is likely to be a minority president who has secured a plurality but not a majority.

This multi-candidate situation suits Kim Dae-jung fine, since his power base in the disdained Cholla provinces, plus his controversial record, both make it unlikely that he could win an outright majority. This fact is born out in the opinion polls, wherein Kim usually leads with between 30 and 36 percent support but without ever rising above forty percent.

Sadly, the South Koreans, like the Filipinos, have not taken the vital democratic step of instituting run-off presidential elections, whereby weaker candidates are successively eliminated until the elected president has a majority of the vote.

Kim Young-sam won in 1992 with less than 50 percent of the vote, while Kim Dae-jung might win in 1997 with less than forty percent.

But Kim Dae-jung cannot afford to be complacent. If a week is a long time in politics, then the upcoming two months of presidential politicking are a veritable eternity.

The present prospect of a Kim Dae-jung minority presidency could be thwarted in several ways.

The old regional, almost ethnic disdain, particularly strong in the two Kyongsang provinces, for the man from Cholla province may resurface, even though it seems to be dormant at the moment. Kyongsang has provided the last four South Korean Presidents.

Additionally, tied in with this reality, there is also the particular animosity felt by the ruling elite for Kim Dae-jung.

Long regarded as a crypto-communist, a subversive, or a North Korean stooge, the advent of democracy has not necessarily diminished this phenomenon.

Kim Dae-jung tries to combat it by, for example, recently coopting 12 former generals into the NCNP ranks. It remains to be seen whether he can win greater elite acceptance.

In this connection, the long-expected but not-yet-realized alliance between Kim Dae-jung and the third of the three famous Kims -- former Prime Minister and intelligence chief Kim Jong- pil -- could increase support for Kim Dae-jung by much more than the four percent which Kim Jong-pil tends to win when running last in current polls.

A key imponderable remains whether an alliance between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-pil would provoke the other candidates to also amalgamate. The impact of a troubled economy on voter loyalties is another uncertainty.

So far the chief characteristic of the campaign has been the tremendous vilification of Kim Dae-jung by the NKP as they denounce him for amassing a US$ 70 million slush fund with which to fight the election.

The very intensity of the mud-slinging illustrates the elite disdain for Kim Dae-jung and Cholla. Those making the charges have obviously failed to remember that those placed in glass houses really should not throw stones.

On Oct. 21, in a highly significant move, Korea's state prosecutors rejected calls for a legal investigation of Kim Dae- jung's finances. The legal authorities let it be known that to make such an investigation two months before the election could split public opinion, cause confusion in the country and impede hopes of an economic revival.

The prosecutors did not rule out a later investigation. But their decision carried a double meaning for South Koreans.

Prosecutors often act at the command of the ruling administration. Certainly they were refraining from following the ruling party's wishes in declining to act now on the assumption of scandal.

But as the state prosecutors refused to take sides in the election dispute, they indirectly made it clear to everyone that they, too, thought it possible that Kim Dae-jung, probably in tandem with Kim Jong-pil, might well be the winner in December's poll.