The election last autumn of the activist Park Won-soon as mayor of Seoul demonstrated the growing strength of the youth vote, which took the ruling Grand National Party completely by surprise. Young people mobilized themselves spontaneously, using all the tools of social networking and modern communications, to turn out not only voters their own age, but countless others exasperated with South Korea’s rigidity and insulated opportunities.
The sudden surge in young voters has called into question the long-presumed victory of the governing GNP’s likely candidate, Park Guen-hye, in the presidential election due to be held in December. Indeed, many political analysts now regard the GNP as a sinking ship, particularly after a staffer to one of the party’s MPs allegedly masterminded a cyber-attack on the National Election Commission’s Web site to prevent young voters from getting to the polls.
While some pundits and politicians now suggest that the GNP could collapse sooner than corrupt and poverty-stricken North Korea, Park Geun-hye, an iconic woman in South Korean politics, has made it clear that she will not abandon the GNP. To further highlight her resolve, Park became the GNP’s interim leader last month.
In Park’s eyes, abandoning the GNP simply because of the party’s deepening unpopularity would show her to lack principles and trustworthiness. Her refusal to strike out on her own is probably the main reason why she continues to lead various opinion polls. Nevertheless, recent polls show that a majority of voters distrust the incumbent government and the ruling party.
Indeed, Ahn Cheol-soo, a successful entrepreneur turned pro-reform professor at Seoul National University and the main backer of the city’s new mayor, has now rocked South Korean politics by dropping broad hints that he might become a presidential candidate. Ahn has already become a lightning rod for all of the country’s anti-Park and anti-President Lee Myun-bak forces, attracting young people as well.
Ahn’s most obvious merits are his personal history of overcoming severe challenges and his modest demeanor. His signature commercial achievement – the development of anti-virus software – made him immensely wealthy. His decision to give away a large portion of his fortune has made him immensely popular.
More importantly, Ahn knows how to talk to people who are frustrated by South Korea’s rigid economy and business environment, particularly South Korean youth. He also seems cognizant of the growing power of social networking in politics. Although the 49-year-old professor remains formally uncommitted to running for office, his frankness and tolerance aids his ability to communicate a clear political message of the need for fundamental change. Rarely in South Korean politics has a candidate’s personality played so important a role.
Ahn’s economic beliefs, formed mainly by his experiences as a CEO fighting against the entrenched power of South Korea’s chaebol (vast, politically well-connected industrial conglomerates), has rekindled a debate on both the right and the left about whether the chaebol are still capable of leading the country’s economy effectively.
In an era of growing inequality and joblessness, Ahn’s criticism of the chaebol is both smart economics and smart politics. Economically frustrated youth welcome Ahn with loud cheers wherever he appears, because he expresses their anxiety that the chaebol are stifling new companies that could create much-needed jobs.
One big obstacle that Ahn will face if he decides to run is the need to organize a political party, or else to forge a coalition among South Korea’s fractured opposition parties. Neither is an easy task, and the precedent of incompetence established by Japan’s Democratic Party since it defeated the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party may make some South Korean voters reluctant to abandon the familiar and battle-tested GNP. But, despite these worries, it is difficult to imagine that Ahn would stand aside this April while voters’ demand for him continues to soar.
The near-certainty that Ahn will join the fray is not good news for the already-unstable GNP, especially for Park. In one of her very rare appearances on a popular television talk show on January 2, she called Ahn “a very popular professor with young people.” Indeed, while she acknowledged that young men and women have “rebelled” against the established parties, Ahn supposedly spurred them to do so through a series of lectures called “Youth Concert.”
While the “Ice Princess,” as Park is nicknamed, will undoubtedly retain her core voters, more than 20 million South Koreans now access Twitter or Facebook on their cellphones, and follow politics on them. These are new or disenchanted voters; how they vote in April – and how many of their fellow citizens follow their lead – will determine whether South Korea has its own political spring.
Lee Byong-chul, formerly on the national-security planning
staff for Presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, is a senior fellow at the Institute
for Peace and Cooperation, Seoul.
李炳哲: 韓國的政治之春
發自首爾——當身材矮胖的金正恩29歲接掌朝鮮最高權力的消息充斥著全世界報紙頭條之時，與朝鮮青年和政治有關的最重要新聞卻來自半島的南端。在韓國，年輕的選民們正日漸激憤，更具參政積極性，對原有政治黨派的敵意也不斷上升。而這種人口結構的變遷以及隨之對韓國政治現狀構成的挑戰也意味著一場“自由主義”的覺醒，甚至將徹底改變該國的政治版圖。
政治異見分子朴元淳在去年秋季選舉中當選首爾市長的事件說明年輕選民的力量正不斷壯大，也令執政的韓國大國家黨措手不及。年輕人自發動員起來，利用一切社交網路工具和現代通訊手段，不僅使得本年齡層的選民出手投票，還發動了無數被僵化現狀以及階級流動機會缺失所激怒的人們。
執政大國家党的總統候選人朴槿惠原本被外界一致看好，但年輕選民的突然湧現使得今年12月的總統選舉突生變數。事實上許多政治分析家如今都將大國家黨視為一艘沉沒中的巨輪，而情況在該黨一名國會議員被揭發為防止年輕選民參與民調，不惜暗中操縱對國家選舉委員會網站的網路襲擊之後則更加惡化了。
但當某些專家和政界人物預言大國家黨將比腐敗貧窮的朝鮮更早崩潰的時候，朴槿惠這位元韓國政壇的標誌性女性卻明確聲明不會拋棄自己的黨派。為了進一步宣示自己的決心，她還於上月當選為該党的臨時黨魁。
在朴槿惠看來，僅僅因為大國家黨民望不斷走低就出走只能說明自己是個缺乏原則且不可靠的人。而這種拒絕出走的行為或許就是她在各大民意調查中依然領先的原因。但最近的民意調查也表明：大部分選民根本不信任本屆政府和執政黨。
事實上，由成功企業家成功轉型為首爾大學教授的改革派人物，同時也是首爾新市長背後主要支持者的安哲秀也正四處暗示自己將參選總統，使得韓國政壇再起波瀾。目前安哲秀已經成為了該國所有反朴槿惠和反李明博勢力的標杆，同時也對青年群體擁有極大吸引力。
安哲秀最明顯的優勢莫過於多次克難制勝的個人經歷及其風度翩翩的舉止。他最為人稱道的商業成就——開發殺毒軟體——為他帶來了巨額財富，而他放棄自己一大部分財富的決定又為其換取了極高的民望。
更重要的是，安哲秀懂得如何跟那些對韓國僵化經濟和營商環境感到沮喪的人溝通，尤其是那些青年們。他似乎也深諳社交網路不斷膨脹的政治能量。雖然這位49歲的教授尚未正式宣佈參選，但他的坦誠和寬容使其更有能力去傳達一個推動根本性變革的清晰政治資訊。而在韓國政治中還從未有一個總統候選人能有如此大的個人魅力。
此外安哲秀的經濟信條基本都是在當年任企業CEO時與財閥（政治背景深厚的巨型工業集團）的鬥爭中形成的，而這些信條也再次在左右兩派陣營中掀起了一場關於財閥是否還能有效領導韓國經濟的辯論。
在這個分配不均和失業狀況不斷惡化的時期，安哲秀對財閥的批評無論在經濟還是政治上都是明智的。那些經濟上不如意的青少年在安哲秀每次出現時都會大聲歡呼，因為他們擔心大財閥會傾軋那些新企業的生存空間並減少新增職位，而安哲秀恰好表達了這一訴求。
但安哲秀競選所面對的一大障礙就是必須組建一個政黨，或者在韓國星羅棋佈的反對派中組建一個聯盟——這都絕非易事。而日本民主黨在擊敗長期執政的自民黨後所表現出來的無能先例也令許多韓國選民不願意拋棄熟悉且久經考驗的大國家黨。但即便存在這些顧慮，我們也很難想像今年四月安哲秀能在選民不斷高漲的呼聲中按兵不動。
安哲秀參選的極大可能性對於已經陷入風雨飄搖的大國家党（尤其是朴槿惠）來說可不是個好消息。在1月2日朴槿惠罕見地出現在一檔著名電視節目上，並將安哲秀稱之為“很受青年人歡迎的教授”。事實上當她承認青年人都開始“反抗”現有的政黨之時，估計安哲秀就是通過一系列名為“青年音樂會”的課程來實現這一點的。
而當綽號“冰公主”的朴槿惠不出意外地保住其核心選民時，超過2000萬韓國人正在利用手機上twitter或者facebook並以此跟蹤政治動向。這就是那些新湧現且醒悟了的選民；而他們將在四月如何投票——同時又有多少市民會追隨他們的腳步——將決定韓國是否將迎來自己的政治之春。
李炳哲曾於韓國金泳三以及金大中政府任國家安全計畫專員，現為首爾和平與合作研究所高級研究員