A History of Korea (102 page)

A major policy of Lee’s platform was the cross-Korea canal project, which he believed would lead to an economic revival. But his rivals criticized that the project was unrealistic and too costly to be realized. Lee also pledged the “747 plan,” which included 7 percent annual growth in
GDP
, $40,000 per capita, making South Korea the world’s seventh largest economy.

Spurred by the
GNP
’s nomination of a presidential candidate, the GUNDP elected its own presidential candidate on 15 October 2007. The long, bitter, and confusing race to find a progressive standard bearer for president ended in victory for former unification minister Ch
ŏ
ng Tong-y
ŏ
ng. The opposition
GNP
branded Ch
ŏ
ng as a “sycophant” to Roh Moo-hyun whom the party described as a “failed president.”

As the presidential election drew near, the race for the presidency became increasingly fierce. On 7 November 2007 former Grand National Party leader
Yi Hoe-ch’ang injected instability and uncertainty into the presidential race by abandoning the opposition party and launching an independent run for president. His belated entry seemed to reshape the election dramatically into an unpredictable three-way race between two conservatives and one progressive. Yi’s presidential bid would be helpful to Ch
ŏ
ng, insofar as it would divide the conservative vote, but it also made the influence of Park Geun-hye a major factor. She held the key in terms of tipping the balance of power between the two conservatives, who badly needed her support to gain conservative votes. In the end, Park reluctantly supported Lee.

After years of slowing economic growth and instability in housing markets, economic issues commanded top voter attention in the presidential election, and Lee basked in the voter confidence that he would be the best manager of the national economy. On the other hand, the continuing suspicions surrounding him became a useful source of attack for other candidates. In particular, questions about Lee’s relationship with a company called
BBK
were raised. The supposed
BBK
founder, a Korean-American, was investigated for large-scale embezzlement and stock price-fixing schemes, in which many investors lost substantial amounts of money. Lee denied any association with
BBK
.

On 5 December 2007 the prosecution cleared Lee of almost all allegations linked to the financial scam perpetrated by his former business partner, and to charges of asset concealment. This dealt a blow to other candidates in the race. On 17 December, just two days before the election, anti-Lee parties in the National Assembly passed a bill providing for an independent counsel essentially to investigate Lee’s involvement in the scam.

On 19 December 2007 Lee soared to victory in the presidential election, taking 48.7 percent of the vote. Ch
ŏ
ng Tong-y
ŏ
ng gained just 26.1 percent, and independent Yi Hoe-ch’ang, who would launch a new party, the Liberty Forward Party, on 10 January 2008, won 15.1 percent. Lee’s margin of victory was the largest since democratic presidential elections began 20 years earlier. His triumph ushered in an era of new conservatism in South Korea characterized by a more hard-line approach to North Korea, business-friendly policies, and the pursuit of a more competitive environment in schools and labor markets.Lee’s victory was considered a “victory of bread-and-butter issues” over ideological visions that had polarized South Korean society under the progressive Roh Moo-hyun administration. As the South Korean electorate supported Lee despite ceaseless allegations that questioned his morality, its priority was on the “capacity” rather than the “morality” of candidates, and so Lee’s pledge to revitalize the
once prospering economy and redress the misrule of his predecessor led to his overwhelming victory.

With Lee’s election, the Roh Moo-hyun era virtually ended. One of the most important virtues required for any ruler is the ability to identify the spirit of the times and reflect this in the government agenda; in this light Roh had no inkling of what the electorate wanted from him, nor did he even try to find out. He completely neglected the motto “the best governance is in economics”; he paid little attention to people’s livelihoods, and as a result his popularity evaporated.

Many South Koreans hoped that Roh would reform Korean politics and society, long dominated by the corrupt establishment. Obsessed with ideological bigotry and self-righteousness, however, Roh confused reform with destruction. He directed his energies to denying the establishment and the past, and, although he defined his administration as participatory, Roh interpreted “participation” as “exclusive participation,” where his followers were allowed to participate. Under his administration, South Korean society became more keenly polarized into conservatives versus progressives, the older generation versus the younger generation, the Seoul area against the regions outside the capital, the districts on the southern side of the Han River in Seoul opposed to those on the northern side, pro-government media against antigovernment media, and anti-American forces versus pro-American forces. In particular, he divided the South Korean people into the “20 percent” and the “80 percent”; to gain support from the “80 percent,” he denounced the “20 percent” as reactionary old-liners. As he divided the people and pitted them against one another, social conflict and disintegration deepened.

As soon as the unpopular Roh slid into a “lame duck” presidency, he was haunted by spiteful backlash politics, not unlike the situation of the mythological Greek figure Cassandra, who had been given the ability to predict the future along with the curse that no one would believe her. As critical news media coined such noxious phrases as the “Roh Moo-hyun discount” or the “Roh Moo-hyun stress,” the Cassandra syndrome spread fast among the Korean population, frustrating the president.

A growing portion of the population opposed Roh’s policies not because the policies were regarded as inappropriate but simply because they were proposed by the Roh administration. Curtailment of the mandatory military service, often offered by different politicians prior to crucial elections, was seen differently when Roh proposed it in December 2006. Similar situations unfolded over issues such as real estate and specifically the constitutional amendment
that Roh proposed in early January 2007 to introduce a U.S.-style, four-year presidential system. The “anything but Roh” phenomenon increasingly deepened, and his plight was largely attributed to his own loss of trust. Roh failed to convey his trustworthiness to the people because of his arrogance and self-righteousness.

Roh Moo-hyun sought to transform South Korean society, but he did not transform himself. He was obstinate and characterized by intransigence. He fought for what he believed was right but did not have the power to persuade and lead the people. He may have aspired to become a great president like Abraham Lincoln, but instead he had much in common with Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, who was impeached by Congress and came within one vote of being removed from office.

Lee Myung-bak took office as president on 25 February 2008, vowing to revitalize the economy, strengthen the
ROK
–U.S. alliance, and implement a tougher policy toward North Korea. A few days before he assumed office, the independent counsel who had investigated his involvement in the
BBK
case cleared him of all charges of financial misdeeds.

In the early months of 2008 South Korean party politics was shaken from top to bottom. The feud between the Lee and Park factions over the
GNP
’s slate of nominees for the National Assembly elections, scheduled for 9 April 2008, headed into intense fighting. Each side wanted to field more of their candidates, and this conflict seriously threatened party unity. In late March Park lashed out at the
GNP
leadership regarding the nominees, demanding that party leaders take responsibility for what she called unprincipled and undemocratic nominations that were deception to the people. At the same time a significant number of senior politicians close to Park departed from the
GNP
to run in the parliamentary elections as independents or to form another party.

On 11 February 2008 the Grand United New Democratic Party and remnants of the minor Democratic Party agreed to merge into the United Democratic Party. They rejoined just short of four and a half years after they had split. The coalition party was formed to prevent the
GNP
from sweeping the National Assembly elections. The party changed its name to the Democratic Party in early July 2008. Meanwhile the Democratic Labor Party faced chaos, as the party’s minority “People’s Democracy” faction threatened to leave the party over an ideological feud with the hard-line majority, the “National Liberation” faction.
On 16 March 2008 the former group left the party to form the New Progressive Party.

In the National Assembly elections on 9 April 2008, the Grand National Party won a slim majority, obtaining 153 seats. The main opposition United Democratic Party won 81 seats, and Yi Hoe-ch’ang’s Liberty Forward Party gained 18 seats. Fourteen seats were secured by the “Pro-Park Coalition,” a group of Park Geun-hye supporters. The Democratic Labor Party and the newly formed Creative Korea Party took 5 and 3 seats, respectively. Remaining seats went to the independent candidates. Although the
GNP
had a majority in the National Assembly, the Lee Myung-bak government faced considerable limitations. More than 60 candidates supporting Park Geun-hye were elected, and her faction would constitute the third-largest force in the National Assembly to keep the Lee administration in check. In mid-July 2008, 17 lawmakers, made up of independents as well as members of the Pro-Park Coalition, rejoined the
GNP
. The ruling party then became a “divided house,” with two cohabiting factions. The election marked a clear shift in power from the progressives to the conservatives.

By June 2008 Lee’s approval rating reached just 17 percent, mortifying him in view of his striving to stimulate economic growth by whipping the country’s lax bureaucracy into shape, cajoling the business establishment into making investments, and taking other actions to boost economic growth and create jobs. Even more humiliating was the campaign to impeach him. Weakening popularity and strengthening opposition put Lee’s leadership to the test. Behind these unwelcome developments was his mishandling of the controversy over an agreement to restart imports of U.S. beef that might have been tainted by mad cow disease. The mad cow scare became a rallying point for panicky consumers, angry farmers, hostile unions, leftist schoolteachers, opposition parties, and other forces opposed to Lee. His government failed to address the problem adequately when opponents began to ask why it had made concessions to import the beef despite the threat of mad cow disease. The Lee administration was criticized by its opponents for hastily agreeing to resume beef imports ahead of his summit with U.S. President George W. Bush in mid-April 2008. Some radical critics of these beef imports used the issue to organize an online petition to impeach Lee.

The anti-U.S. beef demonstrations began on 2 May 2008, when hundreds of teenagers held a candlelight vigil in Seoul, and it quickly snowballed. By June the uproar became so overpowering that the entire cabinet offered to
resign. A two-month demonstration crippled the Lee government, forcing Lee to apologize twice and replace several government ministers. Opposition parties, civic activists, and labor unions stepped up their protests, denouncing Lee’s policies as benefiting only the wealthy and powerful. To many South Koreans, the beef dispute was not only about Lee’s unpopular decision to lift an import ban on U.S. beef; it tapped into Korean pride and nationalism. It was also the latest test of whether their leader could resist pressure from the super powers.

With the public backlash over U.S. beef, Lee faced a potential political crisis that could end his reform drive, squandering much of his political capital. The growing furor over the issue could also hurt Lee’s efforts to build a stronger
ROK
–U.S. alliance and might fuel new anti-Americanism in South Korea. There was already a thin line between nationalism and anti-Americanism among South Koreans. Anti-U.S. beef demonstrations were more an expression of the former than the latter, but the divide grew ever more thin.

The Lee Myung-bak administration continued to undergo trials into 2009, this time because of former President Roh Moo-hyun. In early April 2009, following the arrest of a key aide, Roh Moo-hyun admitted that his wife had accepted $1 million from Pak Y
ŏ
n-ch’a, a Pusan-based businessman and Roh’s longtime financial backer, whose confession to a massive network of bribery had shaken the nation over the past months. Pak had been arrested on charges of extensive bribery and tax evasion. Roh apologized for troubling the country over the bribery issues involving him, his family, and his associates. Roh’s family was accused of receiving a total of $6 million in bribes from Pak. Following Roh’s statement, in late April the prosecution summoned the former president for questioning over his alleged corruption during his tenure of office. Prosecutors considered indicting him on bribery charges. This scandal showed how corrupt the inner circle of the Roh administration had been. It was also a political time bomb. Several lawmakers, politicians, and bureaucrats were arrested or were investigated for their alleged involvement in the corruption scandal. The corruption charges against Roh dealt a serious blow to the image of him who touted clean politics as a major achievement of his presidency.

In the meantime, legislative by-elections were held on 29 April 2009. In the elections the ruling
GNP
suffered defeats in all five electoral districts. Victories were celebrated by three independents, one Democratic Party member, and one New Progressive Party member allied with the Democratic Labor Party. The humiliating results sent shockwaves to the
GNP
leadership and cast a cloud
over President Lee’s efforts to push for policies to revive the sluggish economy and reform the educational and public sectors. Voters turned their back on the Lee government because of its incompetence, arrogance, and a set of policy blunders.