Discontent Growing as Gov't Marks 100 Days in Office Lee Pledges to Win U.S. Guarantee on Beef Shipments Challenges for the Lee Administration Senior Figures Advise Lee on Presidency Lee's Approval Rating Plummets to 21 Percent Lee Must Seize the Moment, by Kim Dae-joong

As it approaches its 100th day in office, the administration is on so much trouble that the new president had to rush out and call for a timeout. The team is in disarray and his position is precarious. The citizens are now divided between those who feel this is not what they expected and those who say I told you so. Measured by the yardstick that the first 100 days form the image of a new president for his five-year tenure, this is a devastating result. One U.S. president is said to have said that the later you make your mistakes, the better it is. What's important for President Lee, however, is that he has admitted them. U.S. president John F. Kennedy committed the blunder of trying to invade Cuba only 75 days into office. Learning from that bitter lesson, however, he later tided over the Cuban missile crisis, which was several times more serious than the earlier one. Will Lee, too, have such an opportunity?

The presidency is a power station. If a power station is out of order, households are left without electricity. Even when a power station operates normally, TV screens flicker, and the ice in refrigerators melts and leaks to the floor. That happens when transmission towers malfunctions or transformers cause troubles. For these, read the presidential secretariat, ruling party and administrative agencies.

The president's approval ratings now stand below 30 percent. The chief executive produces only a little over 20 percent of his power generation capacity, suggesting something is grievously wrong. If problems arise at the main power station, supplementary power stations must supplement it. But the Park Geun-hye faction within the GNP and Lee Hoi-chang’s splinter party do not seem to be interested in switching on their generators. That is natural since they are unfriendly with each other and apt to give tit for tat whenever they meet, and the presidential office is wary of asking Lee Hoi-chang to Cheong Wa Dae on grounds that his party is not big enough to form a parliamentary negotiation group.

In assuring ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement, president Bill Clinton called up 200 legislators, both majority and minority, and the White House and secretaries of state made altogether 900 phone calls to Congressmen to persuade them to ratify the accord. About 100 days into office, president Ronald Reagan met and exchanged views with 467 majority and minority party legislators at 49 White House meetings. It's the role of presidential secretaries, the ruling party and Cabinet secretaries to put the chief executive through such a heavy schedule even if he hates the idea.

But the performance in the president's meetings and telephone calls with lawmakers, both ruling and opposition, over the U.S. beef uproar and the ratification of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, and attempts to persuade the National Assembly by presidential secretaries, the ruling party and Cabinet may be too shameful to make public.

In the wake of the public outcry over the resumption of U.S. beef imports Korea is in blackout. Rumors are rampant; candlelight vigils downtown make innocent students look grotesque. The power station, transmission towers and transformers are out of order. It's difficult to destroy and rebuild the power station whenever its capacity slips: we have no choice but to repair it as best we can. But that is an imposition on the people, and the malfunctioning parts will have to be replaced sooner rather than later.

The president promised he will communicate with the people. To do so, he has to know exactly what groups of people he wishes to communicate with. Our workers' average monthly wage stands at W2.47 million (US$1=W1,044) this year, according to the National Statistical Office. Students at 360-odd universities number 3.03 million. With college graduates added, the figure approaches 20 million. Of the population as of 2005, 10.7 million attend temples, 8.6 million protestant churches and 5 million Catholic churches. Much more complicated circumstances are entangled with the region they hail from.

The president must fathom what people of such varied backgrounds feel when they hear during every important personnel decision in the government that candidates have graduated only from a certain university, attend a certain church and hail from a certain region, and examining their declaration of assets. Communication should start from that angle.