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There are just eight months to go before the presidential election. This time before the last election, Roh Moo-hyun had been nominated the ruling party candidate and was enjoying high popularity ratings hovering around 50 percent. But in this race, no ruling camp contender has ratings higher than 5 percent. Most of them are more or less on the same level, with their ratings stuck around 1 or 2 percent. Yet none is less qualified than their rivals from the opposition parties. So what's going on?
Many people believe that the ruling camp hopefuls have fallen victim to the public antipathy towards President Roh, but this explanation no longer holds. Some ruling camp contenders have kept a safe distance from Roh for the past few months, and some for over the past year. One of them has gone so far as to nearly scuffle with Roh in a recent meeting. If the public has come to dislike the ruling camp aspirants merely because it dislikes Roh, their efforts to keep their distance should have prompted some reaction. But there has been none.
Since the country concluded the free trade agreement with the U.S., Roh's approval ratings have soared. His abandonment of efforts to push for a constitutional amendment during his term has at least kept his ratings at the present level and might push them higher. Yet these new developments have failed to lift the approval ratings of the ruling camp contenders. So it seems the "Roh effect" doesn't explain their weak appeal; we need to find a better explanation.
In the public view, the ruling camp, including Roh, is stuck on "democratization." Even though our country was democratized long ago, they still sing the refrains of the democracy movement. The moment someone is classified as a member of the ruling camp, he or she, no matter where they really stand on the issue, is doomed to carry this brand.
Twenty years have passed since the country became democratized, and 15 years since the pro-democracy forces took power. Nobody really believes anymore that we're going to fall under a dictatorship again. Back in November 2005, the Korean Association for the Studies of Political Parties and the National Assembly Steering Committee conducted a poll. To the question, "Which would you choose between democracy and economic development," some 85 percent of the respondents chose economic development.
Had it not been for the impeachment process against Roh in 2004, the general election that year would have proved that just preaching democratization is no longer enough to win votes. The ruling camp failed to figure this out, as it won the election thanks ironically to the impeachment process. Afterwards the president and the newly-elected National Assemblymen from the ruling party proudly sang "Marching for Love", the battle hymn of student activists, at Cheong Wa Dae with their arms around each other. Then, as if bravely waging a pro-democracy struggle by themselves, the ruling camp proceeded to railroad anachronistic bills through the house. The result was a complete loss for the ruling party in by-elections, 0-40.
Nonetheless, many of the ruling camp presidential contenders still sing the ballads of democratization and dredge up phrases like "reformed-minded forces for democracy and peace" and "grand unity of national democratic forces." Factions within the ruling camp still compete for legitimacy by arguing over which has more former student activists.
The public can see the senility of all this, and now finds the ruling camp anachronistic and hollow. A son of former President Kim Dae-jung is having a close game in a by-election in Kim's hometown. Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye (two front-runners in the main opposition Grand National Party, GNP) are currently winning high popularity ratings in the Jeolla region. Even in Jeolla where the word "democratization" once had an almost magical effect, the power has been lost.
When Roh was elected president, a senior member of the GNP said, "We've lost a battle to the times." The tables have now been turned. Anyone who is still shouting about "democratization" or "nationhood" is fast slipping into obsolescence. The presidential aspirants from the ruling camp are political midgets in this race because they're losing the battle to the times. Nobody sings "Marching for Love" anymore, not even at ruling camp meetings. But the ruling camp hasn't learned any new tunes -- they have failed to keep up.
The public wants a break from the cliches of "democratization" and "nationhood", and of course it doesn't want to return to the industrialization era of the Third Republic. The people are waiting for someone to help them to the next stage. Failing to understand this, the ruling camp hopefuls have become largely inconsequential. If they don't sort this problem out soon, they'll end up staying that way.
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