Parties view election victory more important than ideology and policy, says expert

The following is the fifth of a series of articles on Korean politics in 2012, when the general and presidential elections are taking place in the same year for the first time since 1992. ― Ed.


The country’s political parties are in the grip of a reform drive ahead of the general and presidential elections.

When faced with the need to reform, lawmakers have often changed the names of their parties, forged new alliances, or broken away from an existing party to form a new one favorable for them to gain power while maintaining more or less the same members and policies.

Such methods have reappeared in the latest reform drive.

In December, the Democratic Party recreated itself as the Democratic United Party, while the ruling Grand National Party is set to assume a new name next month.

According to one former lawmaker who declined to be named, many politicians see such methods as the most effective means for renewing a party’s image and gaining additional support.

Politicians believe that such methods serve to push those detrimental to the party to its fringes, and to bring in people and organizations that can garner support from areas in which the party had previously had relatively little influence, he said.

Experts, however, say that such methods mean little for the voters.

“Changing names and such is not significant, as the people do not change,” professor Yang Seung-ham of Yonsei University said.

“To reform seriously, two changes are needed. One is people, and the second is the system. There is talk of abolishing the party’s central committee and the post of chairman, but that kind of thing can’t be achieved overnight.”

With politicians having employed such methods for decades, Korea’s political parties have complicated histories.

Less than four years prior to the most recent name change, many of the DUP’s members were part of the Uri Party. The Uri Party itself was formed by lawmakers who broke away from the Millennium Democratic Party in 2003.

The party went through two mergers and name changes in 2007 and 2008, resulting in the Democratic Party. During last year’s changes, the Democratic Party allied and merged itself with a number of organizations including the Citizen Unity Party. The Citizen Unity Party, which was formed by followers of former President Roh Moo-hyun and non-governmental organizations for the purpose of merging with the Democratic Party, was in existence for less than a month.

For the ruling Grand National Party, which has operated under the same name for 15 years, the choice to assume a new name reflects the gravity of the situation the party faces. The only political party whose name lasted longer than that of the GNP was the Democratic Republican Party, the ruling party under the Park Chung-hee administration, which existed for 17 years and six months.

The move is part of the Rep. Park Geun-hye-led emergency council’s efforts to prepare the party for the upcoming general and presidential elections.

The calls for the ruling party to change its name were raised after the GNP lost last year’s by-elections, and gained momentum after its candidate lost to Park Won-soon in the Seoul mayoral race.

According to Yang, such actions have to do with the desire for power and Korea’s relatively short history of party politics.

“The opposition parties in particular have a strong desire for power. Opposition parties unite in order to bring about a regime change, while those who fail to receive nominations in elections break away to form new parties,” Yang said. He added that it is policies that change not the parties themselves in countries with long histories of party politics such as the United Kingdom and the U.S.

“In Korea, parties are for elections. Terms such as conservative and progressive are used, but ideologies are used as mere tools to gain power, everything is put on the line, and victory comes before ideology and policies,” he said.

“This way the voters’ choice becomes harder and people become either too conservative or progressive and unity among the people cannot be achieved. But the reality is that those who are extreme left or right account for less than 10 percent. There needs to be a spectrum of extreme and moderate conservatism and progressivism.”

Another phenomenon often seen in the run up to presidential elections is the effective forcing out of the president from the ruling party.

In 2007, former President Roh removed himself from Uri Party, while there have been calls for President Lee Myung-bak to do the same from the GNP.

Critics of such demands, however, say that as the parties were involved in forming government policies, they should share the responsibility.

“Demanding the president to leave the party because the situation has changed is not right, nor does it help with the voters,” former presidential aide for public relations Lee Dong-kwan said in a recent interview with a local radio station.

“Talk of leaving the party has been repeated habitually, but many current lawmakers have had a hand in the administration as policies were decided through numerous government-party negotiations and because the (government) system includes aspects of a parliamentary cabinet system.”

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)