Declares Victory Before Election : Kim Dae Jung Cheered by 1 Million at Seoul Rally

Presidential nominee Kim Dae Jung, whose campaign has taken on overtones of a messianic mission, surveyed a crowd of supporters estimated to number at least 1 million Sunday, then held up and released two white doves, symbols of his Party for Peace and Democracy.

Stepping to the microphone, Kim declared victory--even though the Dec. 16 election is much more commonly viewed as a tight, three-way race.

“I declare, in the coming presidential election, Kim Dae Jung has already triumphed!” he proclaimed. “Our great people have triumphed! Let us rejoice!”

‘Cry of Democracy’

He then addressed the spirits of those who have died in struggles against successive military governments, and martyrs of the more distant past who battled the nation’s foreign enemies. To these spirits, he asked: “Do you hear the cry of democracy, the cry of victory?”

He had a few words for rival opposition leader, Kim Young Sam, nominee of the Reunification Democratic Party: “Mr. Kim Young Sam will surely have to step down as a candidate, seeing the huge number of the assembled supporters of Kim Dae Jung.”

And he had a threat for Roh Tae Woo, nominee of the ruling Democratic Justice Party, and the latter’s mentor, President Chun Doo Hwan:

“If the present government attempts an unfair and rigged presidential election, they will end in ruin. Let’s declare that with a single-voice exclamation point!”

The crowd was the largest ever assembled by any candidate in this campaign.

Filling a mile-long, quarter-mile-wide plaza that can hold an estimated 1 million to 1.5 million people, supporters cheered and waved yellow banners.

Kim, patterning aspects of his campaign after the “People Power” revolution that brought Philippine President Corazon Aquino to office, has adopted yellow as a symbol of his campaign, in conscious imitation of Aquino’s use of that color.

The crowd appeared to be predominantly composed of lower-income people and students.

After an hourlong, late-afternoon address in near-freezing temperatures, Kim rode on an open truck, accompanied by tens of thousands of his supporters, in a three-hour, five-mile procession to a smaller plaza in downtown Seoul. Thousands more watched from sidewalks and pedestrian bridges as the crowd snarled traffic in its march.

However, rival Kim Young Sam has also drawn immense crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands, in smaller cities, and he was in no mood Sunday to consider abandoning the race.

“The support of the people is for the Reunification Democratic Party only,” a spokesman for Kim Young Sam’s party said in response to Kim Dae Jung’s speech. “In that light, the Party for Peace and Democracy has made a ‘slip of the tongue’ in their judgment.”

Urged to Rejoin Party

The spokesman urged Kim Dae Jung to rejoin the Reunification Democratic Party, which he left to launch his own presidential campaign after the two Kims failed to reach agreement on a single opposition candidate.

Sunday’s events made it clear that Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam each still hopes to force the other out of the race. But it also appears that both candidates, and many of their supporters, believe that hatred of the military-backed government is so strong that one of the opposition leaders will win even in a three-way race.

Many analysts believe that the opposition split gives Roh a solid chance at victory, although not necessarily making him the favorite.