EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on May 1)

Painful lesson

The ruling Grand National Party suffered a crushing defeat in Wednesday's
by-elections, losing all of the five contested National Assembly seats. More than
40 percent of eligible voters turned out, the highest turnout for by-elections in
nearly a decade, demonstrating the voters' wish to send a message to the current
administration.

The total defeat in the first by-elections since the Lee Myung-bak administration
came to power last year is a harsh blow for both the administration and the GNP.
The GNP's failure to secure a single win is largely perceived as a sign of
disapproval with the administration.
The by-elections have sent a number of clear messages to the current
administration, as well as both the ruling and opposition political parties. The
voters have expressed their disapproval of the current state of affairs. The
business-friendly policies that favor the wealthy, the worsening inter-Korean
relations, an apparent nostalgia for government in the 1960s and '70s - a period
before democratization - and lack of coordination among its various branches have
disappointed the people who gave Lee a landslide victory. The by-election defeat
is a message to the administration to get its act together.
Embarrassingly, the GNP lost the fiercely contested parliamentary seat in
Bupyeong where it fielded Lee Jae-hoon, a former vice minister of knowledge
economy. The Democratic Party's Hong Young-pyo won 49.5 percent of the votes
against Lee's 39 percent, giving the DP its only win in the by-elections. The GNP
also lost a mayoral position in Siheung to a DP candidate. Both cities are near
Seoul and, as such, the failure of the GNP there can be interpreted as a loss of
popularity in the greater metropolitan area.
However, the GNP defeat does not automatically translate into triumph for the
Democratic Party. The DP only managed to secure one parliamentary seat and a
mayoral post.
The industrial city of Ulsan voted for a minor progressive party's Cho Seung-woo,
giving the one-year-old party its first National Assembly seat.
The victories of independents in Gyeongju and two constituencies in Jeonju showed
voters' disillusionment with party politics. In Gyeongju, independent candidate
Chung Soo-sung, aligned with the former GNP chairwoman Park Geun-hye, won by a
margin of more than 10 percentage points over a GNP candidate.
Chung Dong-young, a former presidential candidate who bolted from the Democratic
Party to run in the by-elections after the party refused to nominate him as their
candidate in his hometown, won 72.3 percent of the votes. The victory is a
bittersweet one for Chung, who has said that he would rejoin the DP should he
win. Shin Kuhn, allied with Chung, won the seat in another Jeonju constituency,
also as an independent.
The Wednesday by-elections showed that political parties here still have a long
way to go in becoming political institutions rather than parties that revolve
around key personalities. The GNP's Park did not support her party's candidate in
Gyeongju because a member of her faction ran as an independent there. Chung
bolted the party to run as an independent, promising to return to the DP once he
wins. While there have been precedents, these "strategies" - if they can even be
called that - greatly hamper the development of party politics.
Power struggles are expected at both the GNP and the DP following the results of
the by-elections. At the GNP, there will be calls for the current leadership to
step down, taking responsibility for its abject failure. The victory by Chung
Soo-sung will further deepen the party division between the Lee Myung-bak and
Park Geun-hye factions. If Chung is allowed back into the DP, it will spell a
power struggle there as well.
With their votes, the people have spoken. The Lee administration must take the
results of the by-elections as a wake-up call to reexamine its policies and their
implementation. Political parties should stop their internal wrangling and focus
on their work in the National Assembly. These by-elections were a painful lesson
for everyone, a lesson from which all could benefit.

(END)