The unexpected outcome of the recent parliamentary by-elections surprised us. It turned out to be a landslide victory for the ruling party and a catastrophic defeat for the opposition. While the former opened the Champagne to celebrate, the latter was severely damaged by the stunning defeat that resulted in the resignation of the two cochairmen of the party. People agreed that the calamitous defeat of the opposition party was inevitable for a number of reasons.

The first mistake the opposition party made was that it unwisely chose political brawls and grudges as its campaign strategy, using slogans such as “Judgment day for the Park administration!” which sounded like a battle cry rather than a new policy or a vision for the future. People might have been disappointed in the incompetence of the government, but at the same time, they were sick and tired of the opposition party’s political skirmishes that frequently drove its members to the street rather than to the National Assembly conference room.

The case of Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson in the American 1950s is illuminating. After World War II, the American people chose Eisenhower, who came up with peace and prosperity as his election slogan over Stevenson, whose slogan was an egalitarian society and equal distribution of wealth. Experts agreed that if Stevenson had been elected, he could have been a far better president than Eisenhower. However, Americans chose peace and prosperity over social equality and economic equilibrium by electing Eisenhower twice, in 1952 and 1956.

The second mistake of the opposition party was that it gave the impression that it had maliciously tackled nearly all the policies and bills proposed by the ruling party, and consequently crippled the government. When national security is at stake, the opposition party should willingly collaborate with the ruling party to overcome the threat, as the opposition in other advanced countries would do. Regrettably, our opposition party keeps vehemently antagonizing the ruling party for political gain, even in times of crisis. Obviously, our opposition party thinks of the ruling party as its mortal enemy, not as its worthy opponent.

The opposition party should also have acted more quickly on compelling issues such as the special Sewol bill. Instead of dragging it on and on to score political points, the opposition party should have negotiated with the ruling party and passed the bill much sooner. Unfortunately, however, the dispute over the bill is still going on in the National Assembly, even though three months have passed since the tragedy shook the nation.

Perhaps we should learn from the U.S. Congress about how fast our National Assembly should take action. For example, as soon as it became aware of the vulnerability of the homesteaders in the wilderness in the mid-19th century, the U.S. Congress immediately passed the unprecedentedly strong self-defense bill that would protect homeowners from dangerous intruders. When Charles Lindberg’s child was kidnapped and killed in the early 20th century, the U.S. Congress once again swiftly passed a bill that designated child kidnapping and killing as a capital crime. Au contraire in Korea. Countless urgent bills remain languishing in our National Assembly.

The third mistake the opposition party made was that it neither was able to cut itself off completely from pro-North Korea extremists nor was it able to practice what it calls “new politics.” Instead of the banal slogan, “Down with the Park administration!” it should have come up with fresh ideas and visions to make Korea anew, transcending the gravity of chronic diseases such as factional brawls, antagonism and ideological warfare.

It seems that the mental clock of our opposition party is stuck in the 1960s and 1970s, when South Korea suffered under a military dictatorship. But times have changed. The opposition should reset its clock to 2014 and allow it to keep ticking. We no longer want our opposition party to fight desperately for democracy. Now, we want our opposition party to be more decent, generous and trustworthy.

Instead of staging candlelight demonstrations against the government, we expect our opposition party to host a candlelight vigil for the unfortunate soldier who was recently tortured and killed in an army barrack by his fellow soldiers. We expect our opposition party to collaborate immediately with the ruling party to pass a bill that would prevent the same tragic incident from happening again. If the Korean government is as slow to act as it usually is, Korean mothers would refuse to send their sons to serve in the Army.

When and if our opposition party overcomes the three problems above, it will receive “three cheers” from the Korean people despite the recent devastating defeat. If not, it will lose elections again and its presidential candidate will not be able to enter Cheong Wa Dae in the near future. The opposition party should radically change now. 

By Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor of English at Seoul National University and president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. ― Ed.