Mercurial Politics, Part 3: The Right

[Update 5 Jun 06: As I predicted below, the GNP win and the attack on Park Geun-Hye have given her a big boost at Lee Myung-Bak’s expense. Scroll down for more.] You know that the maneuvering is in high gear when it reaches the Washington think tank circuit. Here’s an excerpt from e-mail I received yesterday, inviting me to a think-tank event in Washington next week:

The New Right Union (NRU) Mission Statement: “To expand freedom over the entire Korean peninsula and to build up the Republic of Korea into an advanced nation by positively inheriting the spirit of industrialization and democratization.”

As of March 7, 2006, membership in the NRU exceeded 30,000 people. The organizational goal of the NRU is to have 234 regional chapters and 100,000 members by the end of 2006 and 1,000,000 members by the December 2007 Korean presidential elections.

Nice words, but does the New Right Union really represent the New Right? Compare to this question I recently put to Daily NK Editor Han Ki-Hong:

Q. What organizations truly represent the values of the New Right?

A. I think that Liberty Union and New-Right Foundation which started recently represent the values of the New Right.

Consumer alert: the fact that a group uses the words “New Right” in its name is about as dispositive as putting the words “well being” on a pizza box. The New Right National Alliance described here is headed by the same Pastor Kim Jing Hong. Perhaps Kim was misquoted or taken out of context, but from that report, Pastor Kim appeared to have been sufficiently Old Right to garner the support of Park Geun Hye and Lee Myung Bak, and sufficienty silent on human rights and trade with the North to get the support of Sohn Hak-Kyu. No wonder, given that the NRNA has spoken unapologetically about the Korean right’s authoritarian past. What makes the real New Right different from the Old Right is that its leaders fought the Old Right autocrats. Just to confuse things even further, there’s also a New Right Network, which stands for God-knows-what.

That doesn’t mean I don’t prefer any one of the candidates in the previous paragraph to whatever replaces Uri, or even to Goh Kun. It just means that they only get my support by virtue of being the lesser of two evils.

In other words, the “New Right” is a nascent political movement that could either overthrow the existing political order or become Korea’s newest fad in deceptive marketing. As the name suggests, the New Right is more likely to be competitive among GNP voters than any other group, and the NRU is probably testing the waters for the formation of a political party and the nomination of a candidate. The clear choice for that candidate is Kim Moon-Soo, about whom I wrote more extensively here and here, and who holds the honor of being the only Korean politician of whom I’m thus far an avowed fan. Kim, a former union organizer and political prisoner, has consistenty and courageously fought dictatorship wherever he has found it throughout his life, and he is now North Korea’s foremost critic on human rights. Kim served three terms in the National Assembly, and of course, has just been elected governor of Kyonggi-do, the populous province that surrounds Seoul and borders a good-sized portion of the DMZ. That puts him in a position to make a presidential run, albeit in a crowded field.

There’s also a GNP faction on the left, led by former Kyongi-Do governor Sohn Hak-Kyu. Sohn fell out of my good graces by (1) being a starry-eyed advocate of unrestricted trade with North Korea, and (2) getting caught up in a corruption scandal. GNP lawmaker Won Hee-Ryong, who has bitterly attacked Park Geun-Hye’s leadership, goes into the same category. Park comes out of the election stronger than ever, which presents a setback for any faction that would challenge her. As of January, Sohn was pulling a mighty 0.6% in the polls, although it’s still very early to call that a real test of his strength.

The right’s biggest loser of the week is Park Geun-Hye’s main rival, ex Seoul Mayor Lee “Bulldozer” Myun Bak, who was leading Park by a narrow margin in January. The contest between Lee and Park, the big winner of the week, is a zero-sum game. I’m no fan of Park’s politics, but I don’t deny that her behavior after somebody nearly cut her throat recently was impressive: she earned a pinkie ring for being both cool and resilient, although I continue to believe that she’s mainly an attack dog who lacks a set of political principles. Her success in suppressing any major splits or insurgencies in her own party thus far is nothing less than remarkable, but it won’t last long. Lee is far from finished, and I’d still say he’s a very, very early favorite to win the entire contest.

=================== Update 5 Jun 06 ====================

Just as I expected, Lee Myung Bak looks like one of last week’s big losers:

The leader of the Grand National Party, Park Geun-hye, is a woman whose life has been marked by a series of misfortunes, all occurring on the national stage. But she has turned her misfortunes into advantages throughout her political career, as she did in the local elections last Wednesday. After a knife attack on May 20, Ms. Park lost little time in the hospital and led her party to a massive victory.

Ms. Park’s popularity is soaring, and political observers are dubbing the phenomenon “the Park frenzy.” It has led to a surge in Ms. Park’s public appeal, making her a powerful contender in next year’s presidential election. In a recent public poll conducted from May 29 to June 1, Ms. Park overwhelmed her major rivals by a large margin.

. . . .

In a poll taken after last week’s elections sampling public support among prospective presidential contenders, Ms. Park was picked by 44 percent of respondents, a leap from 33 percent in late March, and her top rival in her own party, outgoing Seoul mayor Lee Myung-bak, saw a drop from 32 to 28 percent.

The biggest beneficiary of the Park frenzy is Daejeon’s mayor-elect, Park Seoung-hyo. Mr. Park was a feeble opponent to the governing Uri Party’s candidate, Yum Hong-chul. According to a poll by the Korea Research Center, Mr. Yum was well ahead, with a lead of more than 20 percentage points; Mr. Park alone could not have turned the tide, noted Kim Duk-young, the director of the Korea Research Center. But the race was all too easily influenced when Ms. Park visited Daejeon after leaving the hospital. Such was the power of the Park frenzy.

Keep two things in mind here. First, this surge probably won’t last all that long. Second, the actual election results, as I pointed out above, aren’t that different from how the actual local candidates polled in January, with the Daejon race being the one possible exception. The idea that the attack on Park was some sort of conspiracy — absent shred one of evidence for that — is as predictable as it is silly. But of course, the usual suspects are making that claim (as commenter usinkorea forecast).