Democracy’s Hurdles in S. Korea

More than 200 years ago, in his Speech on Conciliation with America, Edmund Burke argued that “all government--indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act--is founded on compromise and barter.” That thought has come to define the mechanics of the Western democratic political process. Elsewhere, though, the idea of compromise, of seeking a middle ground as a means to win at least partial political goals with the expectation that more might be gained later, remains alien and mistrusted. South Korea, which has never known real democracy, is a case in point.

Last week the bitter factionalism that has long riven the main opposition New Korea Democratic Party produced an open split and handed President Chun Doo Hwan’s authoritarian regime the clear opportunity for perpetuating its grip on power. Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam, the gray eminences of the NKDP, broke with the “impure forces” in their party who had challenged their dominance and announced that they would form a new political movement. Most of the NKDP’s parliamentary delegation joined them. With that, whatever slight chance remained for compromise on the sticky issue of how the next president will be chosen was effectively buried.

Chun, reaffirming his decision to retire from the presidency next February, announced the suspension of any further electoral negotiations until late 1988 at the earliest. Instead, Chun’s successor will be chosen under the present system, which even the government admits is flawed, of indirect election through a body of more than 5,000 electors dominated by the ruling party. And it assures that Chun will be able to hand-pick the next president, whose political legitimacy would be widely doubted.

Postponing constitutional change, Chun argues, would assure social and political calm through next year’s Summer Olympic Games, which will be held in Seoul. In fact, a main consequence is certain to be fresh eruptions of street violence by radical students and their supporters. Any political calm in South Korea is likely to be imposed through the use of overwhelming police power, mass arrests and a well-practiced intimidation of opponents through official brutality.

The two Kims, rivals who have formed a tactical alliance, say that they are fighting to bring democracy to South Korea. But opposition leaders whose actions suggest that they can be as dogmatic and intolerant of dissent as the government that they oppose are not the best harbingers of a future democracy. During the long electoral negotiations, the possibility was raised of making at least some major progress toward democracy by allowing more press freedom, greater provincial political autonomy and more respect for civil rights. The two Kims said no. If they can’t get all that they demand, they seem prepared to have their country go on living under authoritarian rule. Chun and his colleagues don’t mind, since it is their brand of authoritarianism that is now likely to prevail.