Serious challenge to Park in Korean election

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32589, 24 April 1971, Page 19

Serious challenge to Park in Korean election

(By KIM CHUNG-JAE)

SEOUL. For the first time in a decade of uncontested rule, President Chung Hee Park —-„a rmy strongman turned politician—faces a real challenge to his supremacy in this fortified nation. In the presidential election on April 27 PaHt TiVifl battle Kim Dae-jung, youthful nominee of die opposition New Democratic Party (N.D.P.), who has gained impressive support through sniping steadily at the government. The widespread conviction in the capital that Kim will give Park a tough time at the election is a symptom of this country’s growing political maturity evidence that a state wfiiqb so far has known only one-party rule may soon get a working twoparty dgtiocracy. To date, the political system has been something less than satisfactory. From the end of the Korean War in 1953, President Syngman Rhee held the battered nation in a vice until a student uprising threw him out when he tried to manipulate the 1960 election. The Second Republic foundered on post-war economic problems and Park Chung-hee, then an army general, took control in the summer of 1961, legitimising his government two years afterward with an election of uncertain virtue. First skirmish Since then Park has had his way in just about everything. This has meant security and economic growth, but no political alternatives. Lately, the going has been harder. The curtain was raised on this month’s elections—which will include positions in the unicameral National Assembly—as long ago as September 1969, when Park sought to amend his own constitution to permit himself to run for a third four-year term. His Democratic Republican Party (D.R.P.), whose two-thirds majority in the assembly allows it to act almost at will, rushed the bill through a midnight sitting. That dubious nocturnal meeting, held while opposition members were fast asleep, led to the resignation of the House speaker and a six-month opposition boycott of the Assembly. It did little to improve the image I of South Korean democracy. : This issue now has been i revived because Kim and his i N.D.P. contend the amend- I ment’s wording permits Park to run a fourth time if he is elected to his third term this month. Kim plans to call a signature campaign to restore the limiting clauses in the constitution. This battle is typical of the encounters between the N.D.P. and the all-powerful D.R.P. One of Kim’s most telling criticisms has been that the last election was unfair, that the government used its administrative powers to bend the minds of the people. The N.D.P. cited a case in

which one village first voted against the D.R.P.’s assembly candidate then changed tts mind a few days later. Opposition investigators found the villagers had been confronted discreetly with evidence that they had commited certain minor offences such as illegally felling trees and were persuaded to think again about exercising their democratic privilege. They did. Issues with appeal Kim has opted for issues with clear voter appeal, with the corruption scourge high on his list. He has cast doubts on the freedom of South Korea’s press and criticised the widening gap between rich and poor, city dweller and farmer. Most dramatic of his election moves has been his proposal for a four-power guarantee —by the Soviet Union, China, Japan and the United States—to keep the peace on the Korean peninsula.

In a country where contacts with persons in communist North Korea carry the death penalty, where political activity is bounded by anti-communist and national security laws, where only the most cautious of noves have been made to trade with “nonhostile communist nations," Kim has pleaded for some contacts across the nervous demilitarised zone.

Many in Seoul have been surprised by the innovations on the political front. “There have been some pretty revolutionary changes in this campaign," says one senior editor. “For the first time, the opposition has stayed united behind its candidate. There are, of course, five other candidates for splinter parties, but they count for very little.” Significant too is the fact Kim was nominated by the N.D.P. a clear six months in advance so the electorate could get to know him—although some of his supporters wonder if he is running out of issues as he stomps about the countryside. (Park already has implemented some of Kim’s suggestions.) No complacency

Park’s D.R.P. is far from complacent In trying to project a better party and presidential image he has reshuffled the government, the party and his own staff. He has dropped some 40 sitting D.R.P. men from the coming assembly election, and gathered a team of technocrats to advise hin.

The ruling party has a campaign master plan which includes strenuous efforts to gain urban support for the president and the D.R.P., whose past strength has been in the rural electorates. The N.D.P.’s strongholds are in the cities and towns.

D.R.P. leaders say this is because urban inadequacies give rise to resentment among the population; the N.D.P. meanwhile points out that it is much more difficult to rig city elections. Park knows Kim has charisma, but he knows too

that this election is not being fought on personalities. Park’s strength is in his record: he has provided security and economic progress. Under his leadership, the economy has responded well, large sums of capital flowing in. Exports have widened. The economy has grown at an average of moie than 8.5 per cent in real terms since 1961, topping 11 per cent in the last five years. All this is acknowledged by Park’s critics, although they can point with some justification to serious imbalances in the laissez faire economy. What really concerns responsible people here is that the close asso-

ciation of security and progress with just one man— Park—augers ill for a peaceful transition of power. Some see this as a failure, rather than success, in leadership.

"I would be happy to see a peaceful transition within the D.R.P. itself,” says one critic. “I know that Park is powerful and will almost certainly win the election. But the next time round, he might not want to give up power.” If Kim Dae-jung and his N.D.P. win enough votes this month to deny Park a two-thirds majority necessary for any constitutional amendment those worries will be eased considerably.— Intrasia News Service.