The people of Honam, comprising North and South Jeolla Provinces, have always had a sense of ostracism to varying degrees depending on individual sensibilities and circumstances. No one can clearly explain why; some attribute it to ancient monarchs’ distrust in the people of remote regions while many find more recent causes such as military rulers’ abhorrence about them as threats to their power.

This latter reasoning is related to Kim Dae-jung’s challenge against President Park Chung-hee when he sought a third term in 1971 and the popular uprising in Gwangju the year after Park’s death. The “Democratic Party,” with variant names in later years, represented the resistance against the Yeongnam (southeast)-based authoritarian rule and Honam politicians formed the mainstream within that movement. Regional antipathy has deepened and the sentiment spread beyond geographical boundaries.

The 2012 presidential election introduced a peculiar situation in terms of Korea’s localism. With the two main candidates coming from the southeast, the people of Honam have no candidate from their own ranks. This is quite frustrating, yet it gives them a break in their history of regional attachment, and an opportunity to rest their isolationist attitude. If they act on cool reason instead of the communal emotion they had displayed before, Korean politics can take a step forward.

What, then, do Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in mean to the voters of the Metropolitan Gwangju City, North Jeolla and South Jeolla? To many, Park is just the eldest daughter of Park Chung-hee, who disadvantaged the Honam region in the process of industrialization. Whatever may be said of her leadership qualities, she cannot claim to have become who she is today off her own back.

Moon is Roh Moo-hyun’s protege who assumed the “fate” ― the title of his autobiography ― to lead the leaderless group of Roh loyalists following the former president’s suicide. With strong support of the “Chinno,” or pro-Roh members, and in alliance with some of Kim Dae-jung’s men including Park Jie-won and party chair Lee Hae-chan, the former chief of staff of Roh won the Democratic United Party nomination.

The main opposition party no longer has a special affinity with Honam. The Chinno members from Yeongnam have clinched party hegemony and the original Kim Dae-jung partisans have been sidelined. The union of the old Democratic Party offspring with dissidents from other areas has been seriously cracked. A few former “DJ” men, including Han Kwang-ok, Han Hwa-gap and Kim Kyung-jae, recently announced their support for Park Geun-hye.

Kim Dae-jung’s unsuccessful first presidential challenge in 1971 brought about his own persecution and collective ill treatment of the Honam people. In his fourth try in 1997, Kim finally won the presidency through the “D-J-P coalition” joining force with Kim Jong-pil who carried Chungcheong voters. The heyday of Honam quickly passed and the first-ever leftist government was succeeded by Roh Moo-hyun, who narrowly beat conservative contender Lee Hoi-chang in 2007.

Soon after his inauguration, Roh dissolved the (New Millennium) Democratic Party and formed the Uri Party, chiefly to reduce the influence of Honam. In 2007, Chung Dong-young from North Jeolla managed to win party nomination, but his defeat by Lee Myung-bak by a large margin of 5 million votes further weakened the Honam power in the main opposition party.

Han Hwa-gap said he pressed Park Geun-hye to make a set of promises to Honam people in return for his support. She reportedly assured him of fair treatment of Honam and pledged to launch major public work projects in the region. Such commitments had already been made in her stumping tours to Gwangju. Park has strenuously made individual contacts with the old guards of DJ in desperate efforts to glean more votes from Honam now drifting without a helmsman.

It is time for the people of Honam to turn from the past and take a look forward toward the future. Over the past decades, they voted for Kim Dae-jung ― four times in all ― and his party’s nominees in all kinds of elections. Now, they need to forego giving automatic allegiance to any party or candidate and define and express their real political pursuit in the new environment of the 21st century. This is required for all Korean voters but Honam can more adequately show an example.

In past elections since 1987, predecessors of the Saenuri Party gained no more than 10 percent of votes in Honam. In 2002, Lee Hoi-chang earned less than 5 percent while Roh Moo-hyun garnered 93 percent on average in Gwangju and the two adjoining provinces. In 2007, Lee Myung-bak had to be content with a little below 9 percent in Honam. In the parliamentary elections last April, Saenuri candidate Lee Jung-hyun, an aide to Park Geun-hye, won 39.7 percent in a Gwangju district but he lost.

Gwangju, North Jeolla and South Jeolla have a combined population of 5.03 million or 10.1 percent of the national total of 49.7 million (as of 2011), yet there are millions who identify themselves with Honam wherever they live. For the first time, they are truly free to make a choice, released from the obsession of regional rivalry, a legacy of the authoritarian past.

Both major candidates vow to realize a fairer and safer society and a more prosperous nation, and no doubt they will try if given power. The boundary between the conservative and liberal-progressive approaches in Korean public policy has very much been blurred as parties found it a better strategy to come to the center rather than to the extreme left or right.

Here is simple advice to Honam voters, which can also be applied to those in other parts of the country. If you prefer a more moderate, slower regulation of conglomerates, you may vote for Park; if you hope for a tighter control of “chaebol,” you could choose Moon. If you want a little more tolerance for North Korea and would like to share some resources with them believing it would help reduce tension on the Korean Peninsula, you may press the seal on the No. 2 slot in the ballot; if you have a different idea, you could move it to another slot.

On Dec. 19, everyone should bear the grave responsibility to allow no regional sentiment to control our hands on the ballot, and to reject ostracism for any part of the nation.

By Kim Myong-sik

The author, a former editorial writer of The Korea Herald, was born in Gangjin, South Jeolla Province. ― Ed.