Hung Assembly but S. Korea says yes to change

By F.J. Khergamvala

TOKYO, APRIL. 14. From a superficial reading of the results of the Parliamentary elections in South Korea on Thursday, it is a hung Assembly. So, what's new? In reality, even if the ruling party is not the majority party, it got a mandate to continue economic reforms.

The high percentage of first-time winners from the ruling party and belonging mainly to the younger generation is a vote for rapid change. Mr. Kim Dae Jung's pro-Government Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) improved its performance. The official results put out on Friday by the National Election Commission shows the break-up of the new House.

The MDP held 98 seats earlier in the 299-seat Assembly. In Thursday's elections, the party went up to 115 seats in a new House of 273 seats.

That was insufficient to beat out the Opposition Grand National Party (GNP) which took its tally from 122 to 133, four short of the 137 required for a majority.

But the power of the executive coupled with the close result suggests that Mr. Kim can continue with his economic reforms and the ``sunshine policy'' of engagement with North Korea.

The United Liberals lost 33 seats to the two major parties and there are just 21 independents and ``other parties'' in the Assembly which now has 46 proportionately elected legislators. Thus, the new configuration makes for less effective vote buying.

That will make Mr. Kim's ruling party's job more difficult when it need to legislate important matters. Quite simply, there are few votes to buy and those of the United Liberals are probably already pro-Opposition.

The turn out at the elections was a record low at just over 57 per cent.

One significant difference from the previous three elections, since such national elections began 13 years back, is that for the first time the incumbent President has had his party's strength diminished after the elections.

This time there is a reversal of the trend. Most analysts say the voting was along regional lines and voting reflected emphasis on local issues.

Therefore, the inability of the Government MDP to get a majority should not slow down the inflow of foreign direct investment.

In fact, with South Korea's unemployment rate at about 4.8 per cent, the increase in its strength in the new National Assembly cannot possibly be a ``no'' vote on the reforms. In fact, the differences between the two large parties on this issue were negligible.

The sale of Daewoo Motors to a foreign owner is a significant difference that spills into issues of nationalism.

The Opposition GNP has opposed not so much the sale but exploited it at the elections as the crown jewels being sold at bargain basement prices.

Mr. Kim's MDP can take credit for the fact that whereas in December 1997 the country was almost broke with less than $3 billion in foreign currency reserves, today they are at over $80 billion. The gross domestic product has risen by 10.7 per cent in the last year. These achievements by far outweighed the need for pre- election gimmickry by the President when he got the North Koreans to announce a North-South summit just four days prior to the elections.

Though no harm seems to have come from the announcement, the gains of the MDP were certainly not attributed to the timing of the summit announcement.

The ruling MDP's gains were mostly in the capital, which gave the party ten extra seats, from the younger candidates. Seoul and its surrounding areas have disproportionate power by occupying 97 seats in the Assembly.

As is well known there were a little more than 80 candidates with a criminal past about ten per cent of candidates had not paid their taxes. That makes the South Korean nation with a split identity - developed economically but very developing so far as democratic ethics go.

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