S. Korea Democracy Gets On-Line Boost : Asia: Computer links enliven first local elections since 1960. Vote today seen as referendum on president.

“Greetings,” says the message on a computer screen as it blinks and glows in the headquarters of South Korea’s ruling Democratic Liberal Party. “I am the DLP candidate for Seoul mayor. Thank you for your support.”

Users can scroll through candidate Chung Won Shik’s background, an emotional tale of a scrappy but honest life. They can view his campaign promises. They can input their own requests and ideas, like this recent offering: “We can’t let an imbecile rule Seoul!”

What is most extraordinary about this interactive computer program and the Seoul mayoral race it supports, however, is their very existence.

After three decades of ironfisted military rule, South Korea’s blooming democracy takes another leap forward today with the first local elections since 1960 and a new law allowing television debates, computerized campaigning and other practices that are transforming the nation’s political culture.

Korean voters will directly choose officials to fill 5,600 posts, but the elections have ramifications far greater than the local business of choosing governors, mayors, ward chiefs and municipal assembly members. The balloting is shaping up as a referendum on President Kim Young Sam; it will lay the outlines for the next presidential election and indicate whether Korea intends to cast aside old political faces and move toward a new generation of leaders.

The voting also marks a critical first step in breaking the central bureaucracy’s stranglehold on local life in Korea. The history of war, military tension and authoritarian rule on this divided peninsula has led to a centralization of power that approaches the unimaginable.

Not only does the central government appoint all local officials, but it also monopolizes all power to raise taxes and apportion them to local bodies. Governors, mayors and the like are essentially central bureaucrats.

That has crippled South Korea’s ability to use local government as a farm club to nurture new political talent. As a result, Korea’s political culture remains perennially dominated by a few leaders, such as Kim and his archrival, Kim Dae Jung of the Democratic Party. Allying with such party bosses has been virtually the only route to advancement, said Choi Jang Jip, a Korea University political science professor.

But all of that is set to begin changing in elections highlighted by the race for Seoul mayor, an office sometimes called Korea’s “mini-president” because it represents 25% of the nation’s population.

“There can be no real democracy without local democracy,” said Cho Soon, a former vice premier and economic specialist running as the Democratic Party’s mayoral candidate in Seoul. “These elections are the start.”

Despite the critical local stakes, national issues have cast a long shadow on the races, dominating the debate. Koreans--party members and ordinary voters alike--have quickly turned questions about the election into spirited discussions about Kim’s presidential performance.

Voter discontent is palpable, and Kim’s once sky-high approval ratings of more than 90% have fallen in recent months to below 50%.

“I voted for Kim Young Sam but was deceived,” said Kwon O Sun, 24, a Korea University law student who plans to vote for the opposition Democratic Party. “He promised many reforms, but they all turned out to be lip service.”

Ambitious Agenda

In 2 1/2 years as Korea’s first civilian president in more than three decades, Kim has fulfilled an ambitious agenda: an anti-corruption drive, landmark financial disclosure laws, administrative reform, a new election law and a purging of the military from government.

Just last month, he pushed through a significant educational reform program aimed at nurturing more creativity in the schools so that Koreans can better compete in a world of technological innovation.

Yet public discontent is growing over perceptions that Kim lacks follow-through on other programs, offers weak leadership in foreign affairs and indulges a vindictiveness that is causing people to call him a “civilian dictator.”

Constant flip-flops on North Korea policy, for instance, and retaliatory attacks against Hyundai founder Chung Ju Young and others who dared to cross him have created an image of a president who is “dumb and mean, to put it in the crassest terms,” one political analyst said.

Kim’s supporters say his bold steps are underappreciated by voters, who have a history of tiring of their leaders quickly. Even his critics are somewhat sympathetic.

“So many things have been repressed and suppressed,” said Choi, the political science professor. “Suddenly democracy takes place, and people demand many things at the same time.”

The president himself has said that since the constitution bars him from running for a second five-year term, he is less concerned with his approval ratings than with shepherding Korea into the hands of a new generation of leaders.

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Those plans, however, may be jeopardized by the elections. Kim has lost so much support that even in his home base of Pusan, his party’s mayoral candidate is struggling. Of 15 major races, analysts say, Kim’s party will be lucky to win half.

Kim’s struggles have opened the door for his longtime nemesis, Kim Dae Jung, to return to the front of the political stage. He registered as an official campaigner and has been stumping across the nation despite an announcement that he would retire from politics after losing the presidential race in 1992. As a result, the campaign has become a replay of Korea’s perennial “battle of the two Kims.”

Still, voters in Seoul and elsewhere will have the chance to reject their local proxies and choose fresh faces. The capital’s mayoral race, for instance, was until recently led by independent candidate Park Chan Jong--until he was caught lying about his relations with the past authoritarian regime.

But if some familiar faces are featured in the elections, campaigning has entered a new world startlingly different from the staid status quo. Until now, campaigning was heavily restricted: Solemn candidates reading prepared statements on television provided its sexiest moments.

Backed by a new election law liberalizing campaign activities, however, candidates have been scrambling to distinguish themselves from thousands of others.

Image makers and spin meisters have joined the political scene along with televised debates and ads--previously allowed only in presidential races. Supporters of Cho Soon, the opposition Seoul mayoral candidate, for instance, concocted an image of wisdom and strength with perhaps the election’s catchiest gimmick: using the hero of a Hong Kong TV show popular in Korea--a judge named Po Chong Chon--as their symbol.

Calling their candidate the “Po Chong Chon of Seoul,” supporters made T-shirts and small toy figures of the judge in long beard and black robe. The gimmick was so successful that another local candidate copied it, campaigning in a Po costume, and the ruling party has been trying to stop it with complaints that it violates election laws against mascots.

TV’s Influence

The most powerful new influence has been television. A series of televised debates in the Seoul mayoral race won ratings of between 30% and 50% and, for the first time, gave large numbers of voters a direct look at the candidates. Not even older Asian democracies, such as Japan, have embraced such methods of electioneering.

The debates made a difference: Park, the independent, was grilled on his support of past authoritarian regimes and was caught in a bald lie. Chung, the former education minister, was asked to explain why he purged thousands of teachers trying to unionize. And Cho, the Democratic Party candidate, was asked if he wasn’t merely a puppet of Kim Dae Jung. He retorted: “How can you say such a thing? This is humiliating.”

The new tactics have been expected to appeal particularly to the young--all the better, analysts say, since those in their 20s and 30s make up 56% of Korea’s 31 million eligible voters. And since the high-tech tactics diminish the need for huge outdoor rallies and streams of volunteers to hand out leaflets--and sometimes money--officials say electoral corruption may also decline.

“Now that candidates can freely contact the voters, it will bring about great democratic change that will fundamentally alter the political atmosphere,” said Choi, the professor.

“It is difficult to predict what will happen, but the sure thing is that Korean politics is in transition.”

Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.