[Editorial] Politics of dignity

Returning home after a six-month stay in Germany, former Prime Minister Kim Hwang-shik recently admitted his envy of the European country’s political culture.

He was deeply impressed by the negotiations on forming a coalition government between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and the allied Christian Social Union on the one hand, and the main opposition Social Democratic Party on the other. Surely, it was a scene totally unimaginable here.

At the September parliamentary elections, Merkel secured a historic victory but the CDU-CSU alliance failed to win an absolute majority. Kim noted that they could have formed a government on their own, had they won over only five lawmakers from other parties. However, they never attempted to do so.

Likewise, the opposition parties, including the SPD and the Greens, never attempted to launch a coalition government of their own, although they collectively held a majority of the Bundestag.

Kim said both the conservative and liberal blocs refrained from forming a government of their own because doing so would have gone against the will of the voters.

So the CDU-CSU alliance decided to form a coalition with the main opposition SPD. A grand coalition of right and left is next to impossible in Korean politics. But in Germany, this is the third of its kind, following the first one that ran from 1966 to 1969 and the second one from 2005 to 2009.

For the SPD, the coalition offer was difficult to accept, since it suffered a humiliating defeat in the elections held after its participation in the second grand coalition government.

Yet it accepted the offer to implement its key policies through the coalition government.

Kim called the negotiations between the two sides an example of “the politics of dignity.” Dignity and a regard for each other permeated the entire negotiation process, helping the two sides overcome differences on major issues and finally reach a compromise.

The negotiation process ended Wednesday and Merkel signed the coalition deal.

Korea’s political leaders should learn a lesson from how their peers in Germany exercise statesmanship to run their nation in a democratic fashion.

Of course, the political systems of the two countries differ. The politics of coalition may be easier to practice under a parliamentary system than under a presidential one. Yet the crucial difference between the two countries is that Korea lacks a tradition of compromise and power sharing, which characterizes politics in Germany.

It is not technological prowess or economic power that determines the fate of a nation. It is its political culture. Korean politicians need to realize this before it is too late.