Kim Dae Jung Edges Closer to Running

Opposition leader Kim Dae Jung moved closer Friday to announcing his presidential candidacy, after securing the support of 30 national legislators who endorsed him to run against President Chun Doo Hwan’s ruling party candidate in elections expected later this year.

Kim, who declared last November that he would not run for office if Chun permitted direct presidential elections, told reporters after his one-hour meeting with the legislators that his statement “became null and void” after Chun’s recent moves to rewrite the nation’s constitution and “democratize” the South Korean nation.

The opposition leader added that he will decide whether or not to contest the election after he visits several southern cities in a tour that his aides said would begin around July 25.

Kim’s declaration Friday rankled supporters of fellow opposition leader Kim Young Sam and pleased members of Chun’s ruling Democratic Justice Party, which is hoping that the two Kims will both contest the election and split the opposition vote.

Asked to comment on Kim Dae Jung’s statement, a spokesman for Kim Young Sam said, “Politics must be based on honesty.”

But Kim Dae Jung’s legislative supporters said following their meeting Friday that they are convinced that Kim’s statement last November did not disqualify him from running.

That decision was a “political leader’s determination to save the nation from crisis . . . by revising the constitution to accommodate people’s aspirations for direct presidential elections,” said Yoo Jun Sang, spokesman for Kim Dae Jung.

Both Kims, however, have pledged several times in recent weeks to back a single opposition candidate to face ruling party chairman Roh Tae Woo, 54, Chun’s handpicked successor. During a press conference Monday, Kim Young Sam, 57, said: “Don’t worry about that. We will work this out together. There will be only one (opposition) candidate.”

One senior Western diplomat, in discussing the growing signs of conflict between the two Kims, said this week, “I think it’s going to be very, very difficult for them to make that alliance. . . . I’m not very optimistic about that.

“They are both under tremendous pressure from people to whom they owe their lives--some, literally--and there’s a fear that if one side gives in, those people could be left out in the cold.”

As for Kim Dae Jung, 63, a presidential candidate in South Korea’s last free election in 1971, the diplomat said, “I think he is running for president, and he feels that’s the right thing to do; that time is on his side and that the people are on his side.”