The race for the Dec. 19 presidential vote has begun. The election management commission opened its registry for “provisional candidates” Monday. Earlier on Sunday, Gyeonggi Province Gov. Kim Moon-soo declared his candidacy first for the Saenuri Party. Park Geun-hye, Chung Mong-joon and Lee Jae-oh will follow soon.
Both Saenuri and the main opposition Democratic United Party will hold nomination conventions in August. The focal issues in the two parties will be what rules they will adopt for the primaries to ensure fairness. In the Saenuri, Kim and others demand a “completely open” primary while Park’s mainstreamers favor the existing system combining votes by party members and registered citizens plus the result of opinion polls.
For the coming months, South Koreans will have to ponder a lot about Park Geun-hye’s pedigree as a daughter of President Park Chung-hee who is accorded the dual assessment of being a ruthless dictator and the initiator of the national economic development that benefits most Koreans now. Much scrutiny will have to be given to her leadership qualities as well as her ability to grasp the complex economic and security situations of 21st century Korea.
Moon Jae-in, former chief of staff to President Roh Moo-hyun, emerged last year as a rallying point for Roh loyalists who had unraveled as a political force following his suicide. He was credited for achieving a coalition with the United Progressive Party for the April 11 National Assembly election, but the DUP’s adoption of a radical leftist platform, rejecting the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and naval base project on Jeju Island turned many moderate voters away.
Ahn Cheol-soo, who has been the great variable in Korean politics, will have to end his “strategic ambiguity” and decide whether to take sides with any one party or become a candidate himself with concrete platforms on economic and security agenda. His extended evasiveness about his political ambitions is causing the fading of his messianic image which he had gained among younger people with his criticisms on conglomerates and unproductive, unethical party politics.
While parties and their candidates are engaged in all forms of maneuvers in the quintennial race for Korea’s highest position, the electorate has a grave task to do on its own. The people should not just wait for the contenders to offer the remedies they have to heal maladies and their policies to make the nation greater.
Instead, voters should most relentlessly examine the integrity of those seeking power and demand proof before assessing their policies. The media, both conventional and digital outlets, and all lines of civic groups need to pool their efforts in this task. People can have better opportunities as parties would conduct some form of open primaries for nomination.
There are two other things to be warned of. One is illegal transfer of funds to parties and campaigners and the other is making false claims about candidates and spreading them via mass media and social networking channels. The nation should do all it can to prevent a flawed presidency from the stage of campaigning.
