As South Korean voters prepare to choose a new president, many believe their politicians — and their politics — have failed to keep pace with the country’s extraordinary socioeconomic change.
The bitter divisions of the past, born of struggles against communism, poverty and dictatorship, have been replaced by the everyday pressures of life and work in an ultra-competitive society.
The most notable division of all — that of the Korean peninsula itself — has lost its historical grip on the national psyche.
Many South Koreans no longer share the world’s obsession with North Korea. Even last week’s long-range rocket launch by Pyongyang is unlikely to have any significant impact on the outcome of Wednesday’s election.
Voters are far more concerned with issues such as welfare, job security and growing income gaps. They feel, according to political science professor Hahm Sung-Deuk, that the partisan political parties offer few solutions.
“This country badly needs a statesman who can help overcome divisions and lead the country to harmony, but we can hardly say the line-up of candidates offers such a politician,” he said. The choice facing the electorate is clear, pitting conservative forces led by ruling party candidate Park Geun-Hye against a largely unified progressive-liberal camp led by the opposition party candidate Moon Jae-In.
Both sides can rely on old regional and generational loyalties that have always played a major role in South Korean politics. Polls suggest the race will be a close one, with Park enjoying a slight edge.
The real contest is for the center ground, occupied by a growing, aspirational middle class concerned about both economic security and social inequality.
Moon and Park have both sought to adapt their campaigns to reach out to that demographic.
But neither has met with the success of the one candidate who, for a short few months, seemed genuinely to embody a groundswell of support for a “new politics” in a modern Korea.
The independent campaign of software mogul Ahn Cheol-Soo, with its focus on political reform, tapped into the hopes of voters unscarred by the iron-fisted drive for industrialization in the 1960s and 70s and the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s and early 90s.
“This is the generation that, really for the first time, did not view the struggle for democracy and economic growth as diametrically opposed experiences,” said Hahm Chai-Bong, president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
“For them, Ahn had a real appeal, he was different and not from the political establishment,” Hahm said.
In order to avoid splitting the liberal vote and handing the election to Park, the left-leaning Ahn withdrew from the race in November and endorsed Moon, but many of his supporters have struggled to follow suit.
“I was going to vote for Ahn because I had so much distrust about typical politicians and he appeared so fresh and different,” said 33-year-old store owner Jang Ji-Young.
“Now that he’s gone, I have no real interest in the election. The other politicians look pretty much the same. Whoever wins, I honestly don’t think our life will change much,” Jang said. Ahn’s legacy, according to international relations professor Kim Hosup of Chung-Ang University, was to push issues such as corruption and political transparency to the top of the election agenda.
“Ahn served as a wake-up call to politicians, who were left with no choice but to promise political reform,” Kim said.
But in their efforts to embody a politics of change, Park and Moon are both tainted by their close personal links to the politics of the past. Park is the daughter of the late military strongman, Park Chung-Hee — a symbol of national conservatism — while Moon was a top aide in the 2003-08 administration of arch-liberal president Roh Moo-Hyun.
Since South Korea’s first free presidential election in 1987, the country has become a vibrant democracy but freedom of speech issues persist.
Last month, human rights group Amnesty International accused South Korea of systematically abusing a 65-year-old security law to stifle debate and silence political opposition.
And while the Korean “miracle” — from war-torn aid-recipient to Asia’s fourth largest economy in five decades — has been globally recognized, the economy is still dominated by massive family-run conglomerates, or “chaebol.”
Although credited as the locomotives of industrialization, chaebol such as Samsung and Hyundai are now blamed for stifling innovation and suffocating small businesses.
Modern Korea struggles with old politics
