[Editorial] Seoul mayoral race

The main opposition Democratic Party has nominated Rep. Park Young-sun, a former TV anchorwoman, as its candidate for the Oct. 26 Seoul mayoral by-election. She will face yet another contest in a week to select a unified candidate representing the liberal opposition forces.

Her contender Park Won-soon was individually endorsed by Ahn Cheol-soo, a popular software businessman-turned-social critic who created a political tsunami with his denunciation of partisan politics, especially the conservative Grand National Party. Park Won-soon’s approval rate catapulted as Ahn conceded the mayoral candidacy to him in a gentlemen’s agreement earlier this month.

The two Parks and a nominee of the Democratic Labor Party will compete through a selection process uniquely developed by Korean political parties, combining the results of public opinion polls, TV debates and a vote open to party members and randomly chosen citizens. This time, the weight of the “people-participated vote” will be 40 percent and the other criteria will be given 30 percent each.

On the conservative side, Rep. Na Kyung-won is almost certain to win the GNP’s nomination but she too is being challenged by lawyer Lee Suk-yeon. When the GNP decides on its nominee, the ruling party and Lee, a former minister of government legislation, will seek to unify candidacy, but as of now, Lee shows little flexibility about making concessions.

Throughout the coming month, the capital city will be put into an untimely whirlwind of election campaigns. Placards will be hung across streets, posters will line the walls of buildings and trucks covered with billboards will travel through alleys blaring logo songs just a year and four months after the previous mayoral election.

If the noises and optical detractions are an inevitable nuisance of democracy, the various campaign issues picked up by the partisan and non-partisan candidates are again forcing citizens to make a difficult choice while they are preoccupied with more fundamental economic woes these days. Seoul citizens have demonstrated their rather low interest in the question of free school lunch with the 28 percent voter turnout in the Aug. 24 referendum, but welfare-related questions, including school meals, are again coming to the fore.

The Han River is about to become another major campaign issue. Park Won-soon, while admitting his lack of expertise, suggested dismantling two underwater dams in the river within the city boundary as he believed they obstruct the flow of water and thus worsen contamination. Rep. Na of the GNP instantly retorted that the dams are necessary to ensure the supply of potable water for the city’s 10 million citizens.

Borrowing from the jargon of national politics, opposition candidates are talking about “the lost 10 years,” referring to the capital city administration under conservative stewardship beginning with Mayor Lee Myung-bak. Both Park Won-soon and Park Young-sun are keen about removing the traces of former Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s “Design Seoul” projects, which emphasized modernizing the capital city’s appearance. Park Won-soon went so far as to calling for the “disuse” of the Seoul-Incheon canal, an 18-kilometer waterway which is to be completed in October after three years of work costing 2.25 trillion won ($2 billion).

We do not know for sure at this moment who to blame for the political upheaval in the capital city. Some may complain that former Mayor Oh brought it all by proposing the referendum which cost 18 billion won for nothing but his own resignation, while others would finger the opposition-dominated city council which passed the city edict for the free school lunch to start the nationwide controversy.

Whether it be a two-way or three-way contest, the election will have little significance in the nation’s process of political development, other than that it has dramatically awakened our political community to the people’s disenchantment with partisan politics. Unlike the city referendum, a new mayor will be elected even if less than a third of eligible voters go to the polls on Oct. 26. The turnout will go up a bit if parties exhibit greater sincerity in their campaigns for candidates ― whether from their own ranks or outside ― with more worthy issues concerning city life.