S. Koreans elect a Seoul-mate for North as pendulum swings to anti-Americanism

By Donald KirkEast-Asia-Intel.com
SEOUL — The timing of the annual descent on South Korea of the United States defense chief was uncanny. Here the people of the South Korean capital had just elected an anti-American, anti-bases, anti-everything protester as their mayor, and here was Leon Panetta, the defense secretary, talking about the North Koreans’ non-stop “threat” and pledging to keep all the American troops where they are.

The coincidence of Panetta’s reaffirmation of the U.S.-South Korean alliance and the victory of the leftist Park Won-Soon by a lop-sided vote over the wealthy woman whom the conservatives had put up against him dramatized an underlying dichotomy of South Korean society.

Ahn Cheol-soo, left, a university professor and IT expert, smiles with lawyer-turned-activist Park Won-soon, since elected as Seoul's mayor, at Park's office in Seoul on Oct. 2. Lee Sang-Hak/Yonhap

At the crest of an era of goodwill between official Washington and official Seoul, a current of dissent was pulling the carefully contrived edifice beneath the waves.

The visit of Panetta and the celebration of Park’s success, to outward appearances, bore not the slightest relationship to each other. One minute, President Lee Myung-Bak was talking about the impact of the election result, how “heavily” he regarded the defeat of his Seoul mate Na Kyung-won; the next, he was happy-talking with Panetta about the enduring nature of the alliance and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.

Missing from all the blather was any mention of the relationship between the two events — nothing from Panetta about what the Seoul mayoralty election might mean for the alliance, not a whisper from Lee about the backlash against his “hardline” stance against North Korea.

And yet, as the cliches tumbled out, the unanswered question was what did the election of someone who has called for American troops to leave really portend for the duration of their welcome here?

The answer for now, actually, is not a lot, considering that the mayor of this city of 10 million, 20% of South Korea’s population, really has no direct say in foreign or defense policy. In fact, considering all the bureaucratic and local political problems with which he has to contend, he’d be lucky to be able to do much about traffic jams, drinking water and sewage and helter-skelter construction.

The election, however, was not about such mundane matters. Rather, Park owed his success to deep discontent with a system in which the sprawling conglomerates, led by the likes of Samsung and Hyundai Motor and LG and SK and dozens of others, have grown increasingly rich while average people are struggling to make ends meet in a time of rising inflation and unemployment.

“[South] Korea does have to contend with the problem of social disharmony,” one of the country’s most powerful financial officials, Kwon Hyouk-se, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, acknowledged to the sober suits of the American Chamber of Commerce as the ballots were being cast.

He was aware, he said, that the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in the U.S., catching on here in demonstrations in the financial district, expressed “the frustration at the gains and advantages financial firms and their executives enjoy” — and, in the case of South Korea, he realized “many attribute this to uneven sharing of growth and prosperity” with “voices calling for more responsible corporate citizenship”.

If the Seoul mayoral election was about the economy, however, leftist demands for “change” always come down to the American relationship. Park, as one-time leader of the gadfly People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, has made a career of playing on such sentiments, upsetting the ruling establishment with diatribes on everything the conservatives hold dear.

He has, for instance, called for repeal of the National Security Law that historically gave authorities carte blanche to go after North Korean saboteurs and spies along with radical malcontents, and did not hesitate to blame the government for having “provoked” North Korea into sinking the navy corvette the Cheonan in March of last year and then shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea with a total loss of 50 lives.

Perhaps Park’s gravest offence, however, is that he also helped to organize the massive demonstrations in the summer and early autumn of 2008 against the government’s lifting the ban on American beef for fear of “Mad Cow” disease. That outpouring of hostility was a bellwether of the deep-seated discontent a campaign that began with an extraordinary miscalculation by the previous mayor, Oh Se-hoon, in calling a referendum in August on a costly school lunch program.

In an atmosphere in which “populism” has come to symbolize leftist pandering to popular desires, the conservative Oh opposed the populist notion of free lunch for Seoul’s 800,000 school children as approved by a city council controlled by opposition liberals.

Warning of the need for raising taxes, Oh proposed a referendum giving voters an option: free lunch for all or free lunch only for those whose families could not afford it. The opposition Democratic Party boycotted the referendum, rendered invalid after failing to get a minimum one third of the voters to cast ballots. Humiliated, Oh resigned.

As mayor, Park is not likely to welcome a repetition of such a display on the broad grassy circle in front of City Hall, now under reconstruction as a huge modern building above its Japanese-era antecedent. Some observers predict he’ll even display an uncharacteristic moderation that may not bode too badly for the U.S. presence here after all.

“People worry about him being very liberal,” Jeffery Jones, a long-time lawyer, speculated after the American Chamber lunch. “He sounds liberal, but he’ll come back to middle of the road.” Still, he adds, “he’s clearly a social progressive.”

Moderation, however, is not likely to temper the outlook on North Korea of a man who was nominated with no support from the main opposition Democratic Party, until they finally agreed he should run on a unified ticket. The election provides “a boost for the anti-establishment sentiments that the Democratic Party has never been able to effectively manage or represent”, observed long-time consultant Tom Coyner. “Traditionally going after the U.S. as a proxy for attacking the establishment has been a safe and nationalist way to release many people’s frustrations.”

The frustration is rising as voters become increasingly critical of President Lee’s hardline policy toward North Korea, including his reluctance to extend aid or enter into negotiations unless the North shows signs of giving up its nuclear program.

That frustration puts the Americans in a quandary. Talks in Geneva on Monday and Tuesday between a U.S. team led by Stephen Bosworth, now stepping down as chief U.S. envoy, and Kim Kye-Gwan, the long-time North Korean negotiator, got nowhere, leaving U.S. spokespeople to describe them as “useful” and “business-like”.

The candidate for president next December is going to have to adopt a softer line toward North Korea — and certainly not speak in praise of the U.S. alliance or American bases.

Indeed, the big loser in the election may not have been Na Kyung-Won, who will go back to her job as a member of the National Assembly, but Park Keun-Hye, the daughter of the long-ruling Park Chung-Hee, assassinated in 1979 by his intelligence chief.

She’s been a leading prospect to run as a conservative next year as successor to Lee, who can’t succeed himself under the 1987 “democracy constitution”, but she lost points by speaking out for Na.

As for Park Won-soon, he had the support of Ahn Cheol-Soo, an information technology entrepreneur who is also seen as a presidential prospect — and will be playing upon anti-American sentiments along with the need for social and economic reform.

“There are major pent-up pressures that have mad it possible for an independent, technically non-politician to be elected to the second most important position in South Korea,” said Tom Coyrner. “The Mad Cow disease demonstrations essentially had nothing to do with public health. Rather, the protests were a way for the disaffected young masses to make repeatedly clear over several weeks to the Korean establishment that they can take over the streets.”

In that spirit, they got their hero elected mayor — and may also win the next presidential election with an agenda that calls for cozying up to North Korea and reducing the American troop presence whatever assurances Panetta gave the Koreans while he was here.

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