Professor’s popularity leaves Saenuri, DUP scrambling to save face
Fatigued with the status quo of bipartisan wrangling and anguished by economic problems, Korean voters are creating one of the rarest phenomena in the nation’s political history as they brace for a new presidential election in December.
Public support for political outsider Ahn Cheol-soo has remained so high for such a long period of time, it does not even seem to matter whether the reticent professor is actually running for president or not.
Albeit with slight fluctuations, Ahn has run neck-and-neck with the ruling Saenuri Party’s presidential candidate Park Geun-hye throughout this year. In a one-on-one Realmeter poll last week, Ahn commands 44.3 percent support, close behind Park’s 46.3 percent. This was even without Ahn’s declaration of his presidential bid and regardless of the opponents’ attacks on Ahn’s lack of political and administrative experience.
Leaving humiliated political leaders grappling for ways to save their parties’ faces from Ahn’s atypical political moves, the so-called “Ahn Cheol-soo phenomenon” represents the abnormal growth of Korea’s partisan politics that has failed to catch up with the economic and social maturation of the people, political pundits said.
“The reason why the public distrust toward political parties is much worse than in the United States or Europe is because the dissonance between the social cleavage that actually exists in our society and how the parties represent them is severe,” said politics professor Yoon Seong-yi of Kyung Hee University.
“What forms our partisan system at present is two things: region and ideology. However, what the voters want from these parties are neither,” he said.
“The political parties are still tied down to the structure of the 1980s of democracy versus anti-democracy, while our society is demanding them to tackle the real issues of economy and welfare.”
The rise of a so-called “third force” ahead of key elections has been common in the past, but not in this form or to this extent.
In 1987, when the first direct presidential election was introduced, Kim Dae-jung had formed a new party to run for office. In 1997, similar action was taken by Rhee In-je and again in 2007 by Lee Hoi-chang of the Grand National Party, the precursor to the Saenuri Party.
Then-independent Chung Mong-joon had also briefly created a new party in the 2002 presidential race, before aligning with progressive Roh Moo-hyun, who was later elected. As for a non-politician like Ahn, late Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-young had launched a party in the 1992 presidential race.
In other words, while the past “third forces” mainly pivoted around established political figures as part of in-party power struggle, the calls at present are more centered toward an intangible force reflecting the people’s yearning for a political utopia, the observers said. These third forces also dissipated quickly upon the political fate of each of their leaders.
“The difference with the rise of the ‘third force’ compared to the United States and Europe is that in those countries, the alternative forces usually emerge and consolidate within the existing parties,” said politics professor Yoon Pyung-joong of Hanshin University.
“While their partisan systems may differ, the parties in such countries generally posses a more advanced ability to mediate (the balance of power amongst conflicting interests). In Korea, the representative parties fail to fulfill their original function,” he said.
For instance, despite the rise of the labor groups in the wake of rapid industrialization followed by economic and social growth, all of the parties, including the leftist one, have so far failed to represent their voices, Yoon Pyung-joong said. As an example, the Unified Progressive Party, the third largest parliamentary bloc, is currently undergoing a dramatic split following an internal power struggle and external ideological strife.
Yoon Seong-yi agreed.
“There is a big gap between what the voters want the party to represent, and what the parties actually take action on.”
An example are the similar pledges made by each party for the April general elections and the December presidential election in an attempt to gain the support of “moderate” voters.
The Saenuri Party has fielded “economic democratization” as its platform despite it being a progressive issue, providing little choice among the policies and causing identity confusion among the people, Yoon explained.
Such a laggard response by the politics to the demands of the times can be attributed to several things, the observers said.
“One would be the rise of civil society as a political power, buoyed by the new means of communication such as social networking services and the Internet that no longer require the medium of political parties to connect the authorities with the people,” Yoon Seong-yi explained.
Another can be attributed to the political uniqueness of Korea, whose bumpy political development was based on rapid industrialization and an ideological standoff against North Korea.
“Even upon the full introduction of the democratic system in 1987, the one-man authoritarianism continued inside each party,” said politics professor Kim Yung-myung of Hallym University in his book “Political Changes of Korea.”
An imported introduction of democracy against North Korea’s communism led to a long period of one-man-rule such as under former President Park Chung-hee in the 1960s and the 70s, propped up by the needs for national security. It was then followed by sustainment of region-based factional politics of the three-Kim era. Upon the exit of the three-Kim era with the election of late President Roh Moo-hyun, the political system has started its transition into becoming an institutionalized democracy, but with much vicissitudes, the observers said.
The question, then, heads toward the “third force,” on whether they ― be it Ahn Cheol-soo or any other ― can propose a change worthy of the public’s hopeful support.
“The support towards Ahn at present is based on ‘the negatives (toward the existing parties).’ It is not a support for what this third force is yet to bring to the table,” Yoon Seong-yi said.
“It remains to be seen whether the third force could propose a new system that could replace the current partisan politics, and that is not a simple task that may prompt further political confusion.”
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
