South Korea’s Democratic Advance

South Korea’s local elections, the first permitted in 35 years and the cleanest in the country’s history, may well prove to be a political watershed.

President Kim Young Sam’s ruling Democratic Liberal Party was not just bested at the polls but humiliated. The party won only five of 15 major races, losing both the mayoralty and the City Council of Seoul to Kim Dae Jung’s apparently renascent Democratic Party. “Our politics,” said an editorial in the influential Dong-A Ilbo, “is again entering the age of uncertainty.”

Uncertainty can portend disruption. It can also give rise to new opportunities, in the immediate case the opportunity for South Korea to build securely on the commitment to representa- tive government it has only recently undertaken.

Ever since the military coup of 1961, all governors, mayors and minor local officials have been appointed by the national government in Seoul. Now, with the election of 5,600 officeholders, that stultifying centralization has given way to a system of democracy at the grass roots.

The result, as President Kim says, has been an “electoral revolution,” with the left-of-center Democratic Party and a second recently hatched opposition group, the conservative United Liberal Democrats, emerging as true national challengers to the center-right Democratic Liberal Party. Whatever the political future at the national level may hold, the foundation for strong local political independence has now been laid.

One thing that apparently has not changed is the intense regionalism that characterizes Korean politics. The Democratic Liberals did well in their traditional bastions, the southeastern provinces of North and South Kyongsang. The Democratic Party continues to dominate the poorer southwestern Cholla provinces, while the new United Liberal Democrats swept the center of the country. All this could signal deepening antagonisms.

Alternatively, some analysts argue, the existence now of three regionally strong parties could force a greater degree of power sharing and a far wider disbursement of investment. That would be all to the good. South Korea clearly faces great challenges in coming years, beginning with the prospect of changing relations, even reunification, with Communist North Korea and including the need for continuing economic and political reforms. Better to face those challenges with a political system that takes account of all views.