Promises of Korea's Politics

It offered great promise, was something of a milestone, yet ended in bitter disappointment, apologies, and some confusion. South Korea's December 1987 presidential election of Roh Tae Woo was the first since Gen. Park Chung Hee defeated Kim Dae Jung in 1971, a vote widely believed to have been stolen. More important, December's balloting was significant because it was brought on by the determination and the years of work and sacrifice by laborers, students, dissidents, women, and religious people in South Korea.

Their work for democracy culminated in the June 1987 demonstrations that forced the military regime of Gen. Chun Doo Hwan to give in to popular demands for a direct presidential election. It was a shocking concession from a regime that came to power seven years ago in a military coup while bloodily suppressing protests in Kwangju, the capital of the southern province of Cholla.

But the elections were deeply disappointing as well. Despite forewarnings, the vote was tainted by widespread fraud, improprieties, and irregularities far more extensive than the U.S. media reported. Charges abounded before and just after the election of illegal practices, including harassment, switching of ballot boxes, multiple voting, substitute voting, and the abuse of absentee ballots, through which some 600,000 military personnel cast their votes.

Though underreported or glossed over by the U.S. media, vote-tampering and other abuses of the electoral process were extensive and significant. Whether the ballot abuse was systemic and centrally organized to a degree that could have swung the results away from the opposition has not yet been determined.

Roh's campaign also benefited from the government's monopoly of the television broadcasting system. It reported favorably and frequently on the candidate and negatively, if at all, on his main opponents, Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam.

Perhaps more disappointing, however, was the failure of the opposition leaders Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam to bury their long and often bitter personal rivalry for the sake of Korean democracy. Together they helped bring about Gen. Chun's concession last June. But after promising to unite behind a single opposition candidate, they proceeded to run separately for the office despite broad-based warnings that only by uniting could they guarantee defeat of Chun's hand-picked candidate, Roh.

Their failure to live up to their promises -- and to the hopes of the South Korean people -- contributed as much to Roh's victory as extensive voter fraud. And though both Kims later apologized for their intransigence, the greatest cost of their stubbornness was paid by the millions who worked and sacrificed for years to end military rule and placed their trust in the two Kims.

THOUGH THE SPLIT in the opposition made smooth Roh's otherwise rugged path to the Blue House (Seoul's White House), the government candidate still had to do some careful stepping on the way. And if the recent campaign is any indication, the feet of Roh Tae Woo are quite nimble. Throughout the course of his campaign, Roh put on the very presidential appearance of a warm, moderate, and reasonable candidate. He relied on the rhetoric of reconciliation, restraint, and, to the surprise of many, reparations for some of the victims of the Kwangju massacre.

But Roh's promises -- to hold a referendum on his first year's rule after the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics and possibly step down, to focus the country's intelligence services on external rather than internal threats, to extend economic advances more broadly, and to see that past scandals are "stringently investigated" -- seem to be far-reaching, and perhaps equally far-fetched. Despite the promises, the task awaiting the new president seems intimidating if not herculean; and of the three main candidates, Roh may be the least capable to respond to the needs of South Korea.

Extending the rewards of South Korea's economic development will likely be an early and challenging prospect. Seoul's "economic miracle" has often carried the softened image of an economic gift handed down from the skies. But South Korea's remarkable growth during the '70s and '80s, symbolized by an economic growth rate of 12.7 percent as recently as 1987, came at a high cost.

The miracle was paid for by suppressing the wages of laborers, and the bill was collected by the South Korean military. Through widespread use of intimidation, arrest, and jail terms, the army and police enforced the national economic program by tightly restricting labor's right to organize and strike. Roh's campaign statements have shown some sympathy for labor's call for redress. But the country's industrial and financial sectors that oversaw and benefited from the economic surge for two decades now face international pressures from the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, and this likely will seem the wrong time to ease up on the South Korean economic engine.

The regional rifts that divided South Korea during the campaign now may render politics more precarious. Roh's problem is not so simple as merely bridging regional differences. One large chunk of the peninsula -- the southwestern province of Cholla -- has been oppressed for decades and has mainly been excluded from the economic gains under Park and Chun.

Roh not only is not of Cholla, he is the general who gave critical support to Chun's suppression of Kwangju in 1980. He is perceived as an accomplice in the murder of hundreds and was pelted and rejected during a campaign stop in the province. The legitimacy of his administration must be seen as seriously doubted in this region of the country.

But perhaps most tenuous of all is Roh's hold on the presidency itself. The former general now takes office because of a divided opposition, extensive voter fraud, and with more than 50 percent of the population having voted against him. Roh has spoken of the country's need, and his desire, to make amends. But given his history in Kwangju, his intentions can only be suspect; given the December election results, his ability can only be questioned.

In both Seoul and Washington, and particularly in the U.S. media, the new president is being portrayed as the healer and reconciler. But Roh Tae Woo cannot ascend to the Blue House immaculately cleansed of his political past. As one former government official told The Washington Post, "The bulk of his support, overt and covert, came from this massive [government] bureaucracy, and his power base is a continuation of the present regime."

AND SO A NEW ADMINISTRATION comes to power after a year of tumultuous political change and turmoil unmatched since the Korean War divided that peninsula. But lost in the surprises, the shifts, and the maneuvers of the candidates are deeper issues that ignited the cauldron of Korean politics last summer.

What forced Gen. Chun to abandon his plan to hand-pick his presidential successor and to accede to a direct election was the demand of millions of South Koreans for economic justice and the political rights of democracy. While South Koreans have now voted in a direct, though tainted, presidential election, the issues and the injustices that drove them into the streets last June remain unaddressed.

The restoration of political rights, guarantees of basic freedoms, recognition of labor's right to organize and strike, an end to military rule, the release of jailed political prisoners, an equitable distribution of economic benefits, an investigation and redress of the deaths at Kwangju and the corruption and cronyism of the Chun regime -- these are the issues at the heart of South Korea's 1987 summer rebellion. And today they lie at the feet of the new Roh administration.

If he stepped carefully and artfully through the fall campaign for president, it's a finer line Roh must toe now. The U.S. media have widely reported that South Koreans are off the streets and staying indoors these days, and that they have evidently accepted December's election results. It is more likely that they have not yet decided whether they must go back into the streets.

Joe Lynch was assistant editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.