By ANDY JACKSON
Marmot??s Hole Guest Blogger
After almost two months of President Roh calling for a coalition and all opposition parties refusing, the Grand National Party’s Park Geun-hye finally told Roh no to his face:
President Roh Moo-hyun and opposition leader Park Geun-hye on Wednesday failed to narrow their differences over the former’s repeated proposal for a coalition government as Park flatly dismissed the idea.
Roh made the proposal during a meeting with Chairperson Park of the major opposition Grand National Party (GNP) at the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae, in a bid to “end chronic regionalism and (find) ways to revive the sluggish economy,” according to presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo.
Park, however, officially refused the offer of establishing a coalition government between the ruling and major opposition parties in any form, GNP spokesperson Chun Yu-ok said.
“Please do not talk about the coalition from now on, and instead focus on the economy,” Park was quoted as saying by the GNP spokesperson.
The idea of a coalition (at least until after the 2006 local elections) is now officially dead. But, as anyone who has seen Dawn of the Dead can tell you, political zombies can still muck-up the system:
The president, however, would not accept Park’s suggestion that he stop talking about the coalition, noting several European nations are doing well with such joint forms of administration.
“I will think about it, I need to study another form of conducting politics (based on) dialogue apart from a coalition,” he said.
So we can expect Roh to keep spending his time, energy and political capital concocting evermore elaborate plans to bring the GNP under his wing. While nobody outside his political circle will continue to take his ideas on the matter seriously, it is a distraction that the government and economy could do without.
Somebody please put a stake in this thing.
UPDATE: Oranckaynim (Is that a contradictory term?) asked for my spin on the whole coalition business, so here it is:
I know that it is considered naive, but I generally take politicians at their word unless a particular politician proves himself to untrustworthy. Having briefly been ‘in the business’ I know that public officials place a lot of value in trying to keep their word. So, when Roh says that he wants a coalition to restructure the electoral system to end regionalism, my guess is that he wants a coalition to restructure the electoral system to end regionalism.
I have two problems with Roh’s idea. First, Roh’s primary reform idea (proportional representation) will not so much reduce regional voting patterns as reward those areas (Gwangju/Jolla) that concentrate their votes on only one or two parties (the OOP and the DP). Why I think that is so would take a whole long blog post that I hope to get to next week (probably on my blog since the Hole doesn’t seem to have a post continuation feature). Second, it doesn’t seem to have dawned on Roh that regional voting patterns can reflect actual regional political differences. Regional voting patterns have also been seen in the USA (red state/blue state) and France (only Paris and Brittany voting for the EU Constitution) to give just two examples. Regional voting patterns are the norm, not an aberration. So, I feel that Roh’s coalition idea is based on a false premise.
Of course, there can be some unstated reasons for his coalition obsession as well.
Plenty of people have already talked about Roh seeing himself as some kind of Korean Abe Lincoln. I hate to jump on psychoanalysis train, but I think there may be some truth to it. Roh would like to see himself as a Korean Lincoln right down to the Great Sacrifice. The problem is that Roh hasn’t been able to find a crisis or issue that would allow him to rise to greatness:
- Kim Dae-jung has already made the great ‘breakthrough’ on North-South relations. It seems highly unlikely that Kim Jong-il will give Roh a domestic propaganda victory by coming to Seoul anytime soon. Nor are the North Koreans going to risk destabilizing themselves by genuinely opening up their country to exchanges with the South (for example, allowing relatives to visit each other in their hometowns rather than on TV monitors). This leaves Roh’s North Korean policy as little more than an uninspired Sunshine II that is unlikely to produce major results.
-The economy, while not so good, is muddling along. Since Korea is a capitalist system, however closed, there is comparatively little that the government can do to help or damage the economy. Roh’s ‘hub of Asia’ idea is slowly dying and he is stuck between the need to support economic growth and pleasing his political base through redistributive government programs.
So, seeing his term half over with little to show for it and fearing that his presidency will go down in history as ineffectual or transitory (like, say, a Korean Jimmy Carter), Roh is latching onto the idea of becoming great by changing Korean’s entire political system. To do that he needs a super-majority in the legislature to change the constitution, hence the coalition idea.
Roh’s periodic offers to resign or ‘give up power,’ in whole or part, fit the pattern. He might be trying to go down as a Korean Lincoln who sacrificed himself (at least his presidency) for the good of the nation.
A more sinister possibility would be that he is simply trying to get the GNP in his government as a way of neutralizing the opposition through political bribery. In other words, rather than getting the GNP’s support by making compromises on policy that they could agree to, he is trying to get them to compromise on their policies in exchange for a few cabinet positions. I have been pleasantly surprised that the GNP (arguably the most corrupt of the major parties, although the OOP seems to be in the running) has so far refused the offer. If they had accepted it, Korea would have had either a corrupt and neutered opposition or a paralyzed administration.
At least that’s my take on it.
12 Comments
Well at least the GNP has eluded the grasp of the body snatchers. Even if the Great Pretender is sincere about his long term consitiutional ideas of ending regionalism and crafting a political system better suited to [nourish and promote the better?) nature and temperment of Korea, the short term political effect of the GNP agreeing to a coalition would be nearly as disastrous for the GNP as the keystone kops impeachment attempt into which the “Roh Nothings” suckered them. The net result would be that they would get to share the blame for the cock-up that Roh and Oops have made (and will continue to make)of nearly everything they have touched in doemstic and foreign affairs. Sharing the blame might not necessarily hurt the GNP more than they might hurt themselves going forward; but it would do wonders for the administration knuckleheads by enabling them to avoid taking the entire hit, which if Roh persists in his obssession is going to be massive.
??Please do not talk about the coalition from now on, and instead focus on the economy,?? Park was quoted as saying by the GNP spokesperson.
AMEN, PGH! if Roh could only hear it for what it is-the truth!!!
we can only hope he receives a backbone for chuseok and starts dealing with real issues.
With only 30% approval rating and the nation getting more conservative(Prof. Kang will be tried in the court), Pres. Rho does not have much support.
So, he cooked up a Coalition government scheme, which many suspect the preamble for the NK-SK Coalition.
People just don’t like it.
Most Koreans still do not like these pro-North politicians to hijack the country to an unhappy marriage between the north and the south. It is like an wealthy woman marrying a poor man who is prone to violence. The outcome is certain; she will lose everything she has and wind up in the hospital.
Koreans are just waiting out this president’s term to end. The next president(LeeMyengBak?) will straighten things out. And, put the country slightly to the right.
Andy,
Did you have any observations about the issue, or any insight, educated guesses, or commentary about _why_ Roh keeps talking about his coalition idea?
Of course he might just be insane, but I’d be curious to hear what your thoughts were.
Roh’s “coalition” might be well intended, but either out of ignorance or spite, he insists on a top-down reorganization to “end chronic regionalism” when the opposite, some form of proportional representation, would be more realistic. That’s not to say it’s the best thing for Korea, but since Roh insists…and it’s already partly implemented in the Assembly anyway. If he really wants to devolve the presidency, there are more appropriate channels than begging Park Geun-hye for a spin on the dance floor. One of the more disturbing things about roh is not the coalition business, but that he continually insists on his political incompetence, and now most people believe him.
Oranckay - Why is Roh talking about this? I think Roh, like so many other people (especially Confucian Koreans), believes that if you have a good ruler who acts “properly,” then the nation just naturally functions well. Roh believes himself to be a good person (not like those evil GNP-ers), so he does not understand why everyone does not automatically follow him.
What Roh does not understand is that Korea’s problems are overwhelming systemic, not personal. Until you change the system, it does not matter much who is in charge or who good-hearted that person is.
(And, no, Roh’s coalition offers are not systematic changes, they are just about personalities… They would change today’s leadership, but would do nothing to fix Korea’s political structure).
Don’t forget, even ol’ George Washington said that one of the greatest dangers of democracy is regionalism. Korea is hardly unique here.
Roh??s periodic offers to resign or ??give up power,?? in whole or part, fits the pattern. He might be trying to go down as a Korean Lincoln who sacrificed himself (at least his presidency) for the good of the nation.
At least that??s my take on it.
I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Noh has made no secret for his adoration of Lincoln. He knows that he has the distinction of going down as a nobody and is looking to salvage it.
I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Noh has made no secret for his adoration of Lincoln. He knows that he has the distinction of going down as a nobody and is looking to salvage it.Hopefully Roh does not go overboard with his Lincoln complex. Lincoln prevailed in a bloody north-south civil war for ??unification??. Roh could do the same if he really wanted to.
Roh is in fact presiding over a crisis, but it’s one of his own making. People have no leader to have confidence in when their president whines about his responsibilities and says repeatedly he’s not up to the task. The country would be better off with a leadership that had less ideological baggage, from either end of the spectrum. Maybe a bunch of nameless technocrats–less sexy, but less divisive too, at a time when China is breathing down Korea’s neck.
i’m in the “sinister conspiracy” camp where Roh actually is looking to neutralize GNP through cabinet posts and whatever else he can give them in order to get them to play with him. the GNP knows the payoff ain’t big enough and would have long-lasting repercussions for their party. they may be criminals, but they ain’t dumb criminals.
I can understand that most people on this board despise Roh because he won the election more-or-less due to the rise of anti-americanism. But i ponder at the wisdom of thinking that somehow the GNP will set Korea straight where Uri failed. When it comes down to it, it’s a struggle to see if Korea will come out looking like 2 party United States or 1 party Japan. Let us not forget that the rise of Uri was due to the excesses of GNP. In contrast in Japan, LDP has very little opposition.
Flying Yangban notes: “Since Korea is a capitalist system, however closed, there is comparatively little that the government can do to help or damage the economy.” This idea seems to directly challenge what Park Chung Hee accomplished during his tenure, as the case with Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan. In fact, it goes against general attitude amongst voters ever since Keynes wrote General Theory of Interest, Unemployment,etc etc. I’m saying that at least the general population seems to believe that the government can do a lot to help or damage the economy whether it’s closed or open. To be frank, I didn’t really understand his statement, because I don’t understand what he means by “closed.” But I want to say that although the idea of moving the capital is bad, an attempt to make korea a “hub” isn’t such a bad idea. A lot of these “grand” ideas like moving the capital seems to echo with past Asian leaders who have these great visions for uber projects–i.e. Dams in China, highways in SK, etc. Moving capitals may be too prohibitively expensive, but it’s also probably the same reason why SK acts the way it does vis-a-vis DPRK.
VW is in the money as far as the GNP is concerned. They are as nativist at heart as the Roh Nothings, just better (historically, in the guise of their predecessors in interest) at manipulating the US. Now that they don’t have nay wordlwide cold war leverage , though, one wonders how they will do and how they will change when they don’t.
The hub died, like the sperm in the condom, when after being ejaculated by the Korean hubba-hubba PR organ it hit the cold palm of the very visible hand of unabated ROKGOV meddling in the economy.
Korea wasn’t capitalist under PCH it was fascist. Now it’s capitalist, but even the current progressive government can’t enact and enforce genuine antitrust anf fair trade laws - which, contra the Yangban, would have a huge effect on the economy - just one that even the DLP couldn’t stomach because, by creating a genuinely market economy and empowering private parties to police it, it would necessarily cripple all the defenses againt full-fledged foreign participation in the economy.