KOREA-POLITICS: Unwittingly, the North Gives Kim’s Party a Boost

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Apr 12 1996 (IPS) - South Korean opposition parties that until last week seemed well placed to wrest power from the ruling New Korea Party (NKP) in a parliamentary vote, can blame the North Korean government for spoiling their planned party, say analysts.

Political analysts in Tokyo and Seoul agree that until the North Korean regime started provocative military manoeuvres at the peninsula last Friday, the opposition parties had made steady inroads into the support base of President Kim Young Sam’s NKP, and by uniting might even be able to steal Thursday’s vote.

But on Friday, it was the NKP that was courting successful independent candidates — the party needed and was expected to get the support of at least 11 — to ensure an overall majority.

The NKP won 121 of the 253 seats in direct voting, and a further 18 of the 46 other seats filled through a proportional system based on the parties’ percentage of the popular vote.

Analysts say that Pyongyang, with its war rhetoric and military exercises at the buffer zone dividing the two countries, had unwittingly pushed voters to support Kim’s party.

Firstly, it took the wind out of an opposition campaign that sought to undermine the credibility of the president whom they accused of links with past political bribes, and secondly it made South Koreans uneasy about any change in power during this period of insecurity.

At the weekend, the North Korean government urged South Korean voters to support anybody else but Kim, and this in itself would have swung voters toward the NKP, say analysts.

“South Koreans voted for stability rather than a change of the old guard which was the election attraction before Pyongyang’s military exercises,” notes Katsumi Sato, head of the Modern Korea Institute, a research organisation based in Tokyo.

By giving Kim a vote of confidence, South Koreans may have ensured short-term stability, but analysts would be surprised if the president converted that support into progress in re- unification talks with the North. The two countries have been separated ever since the 1950-53 Korean war.

“Under Kim who pursues a strong anti-North Korean stance and used anti-Japanese rhetoric to win him support, the situation in East Asia will remain more or less the same,” says Sato, however adding: “Maybe, now that he is assured of a majority, Kim will not have to play for power as he has been doing this year.”

Relations between Japan and South Korea have deteriorated in recent months following disputes over the rights of an island in the Sea of Japan and because Tokyo recently held talks with officials from the North without first consulting with Seoul.

In what was viewed by Tokyo as a vote-catching ploy, Kim announced in the run-up to the election, the construction of a wharf on Takeshina island, known as Tokdo by South Korea.

In turn, Seoul has accused Tokyo of easing the pressure on the North to re-enter into reunification talks by providing food aid to the Pyongyang regime and also by beginning a dialogue seemingly aimed at a normalisation of relations.

Despite repeated appeals by the United Nations for more food aid to North Korea whose rice crops were destroyed by flooding last year, Kim insists that assistance should not be given until a North-South dialogue is resumed.

Professor Kim Don Fu, a South Korean teaching at Ryukoku University in Japan, says that Kim’s attempt to push Pyongyang into a corner may not be the right approach in dealing with an unpredictable regime such as that in North Korea.

“Seoul must allow Japan and the United States to keep up contact with the Pyongyang regime despite the bitterness across the borders. North Korea must not be pushed into a corner,” he says.

Adds Chi Jung Kwan, a South Korean journalist: “A stronger showing by Kim Dae Jung who commands better respect in Pyongyang, would have been a better sign when it comes to easing tensions on the North Korean threat.”

Jung, who heads the opposition National Congress for New Politics that won 79 seats, had himself admitted Friday that his party’s chances had been undermined by the threat posed by North Korea, and moreover by Kim’s “exploitation” of the peninsular tensions.

Jung, like other opposition figures, had earlier put Kim on the defensive by accusing him of benefiting from slush funds in a corruption scandal that has seen the arrest of former President Roh Tae Woo.

“There was an initial momentum for a change because there is an overall disenchantment with the older political circles in general,” says Chi, making the point that the NKP now held 11 seats less than it did in the last National Assembly.