EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Jan. 12)

Sejong showdown

Park Geun-hye has emerged as the key figure to make or break the government's new
Sejong City plan announced on Monday.

To scrap the original plan to move more
than half the central government offices to the provincial location 150
kilometers south of Seoul and establish a new business-education-research
complex, the ruling Grand National Party needs the support of Park and her
minority faction.
The political arithmetic goes like this. The GNP holds 169 seats in the
298-member National Assembly. Park leads about 50 Assemblymen within the GNP and
the eight-member Pro-Park Group outside the party. As long as Park says no, it is
impossible for the ruling party to carry out legislation to revise the existing
Multifunctional Administrative City Law. Park has adamantly opposed any revision
to the original MAC or Sejong City plan, a product of political compromise in
2005 for which she was partly responsible as the then-leader of the main
opposition group.
Park's decision will, however, have to be affected by the general opinion of the
residents of Chungcheong Province around Sejong City, where land purchase and
leveling work has been in progress to house nine government ministries and four
other major administration agencies. Yet, administration leaders believe that the
revised plan announced by Prime Minister Chung Un-chan contained a great deal of
attraction - enough to ease the residents' disappointment.
It is entirely up to the persuasive efforts of Lee and the prime minister, who
hailed from Chungcheong, to divert the trend in the province. Lee Hoi-chang's
locally-based Liberty Forward Party has been leading a diehard campaign there
against the government's new Sejong City plan with the help of all other
opposition groups. The government plan revealed Monday is actually designed to
provide far more benefits to the region than what was originally to be offered
under the MAC program.
The residents of Chungcheong provinces and the entire people of the nation should
have time to ponder what effect the new Sejong City plan will have on the future
of the region and the areas beyond it, shutting their ears to the calls and
claims of political groups. Whatever they may say, the controversies over Sejong
City are aimed at gaining advantage in the June local elections and the
presidential election two years away, taking the Chungcheong people hostage.
Sejong City is the illegitimate child of a political tryst. The original idea of
relocating the capital city to a central location grew in the 1970s out of the
security concerns of Seoul's proximity to the border and its rapid population
growth. In the 2002 presidential election, Roh Moo-hyun gained considerable
support from the Chungcheong region with his campaign pledge of capital city
relocation. Even in the 2007 election, Lee Myung-bak endorsed the administrative
city plan so as not to lose votes from the central provinces.
Chung made a belated "confession" about the sins of politics that enticed and
then disappointed the provincial people. The whole nation is paying the price in
the extended controversy over Sejong City which the government is now seeking to
end with an apparently bloated investment plan. And the key is the cool
calculation of the residents of the affected region where the government has
arranged a huge amount of investment - 40 to 50 trillion won from businesses and
education and research institutions.
Throughout the debate, Park Geun-hye has portrayed herself as a person of
principles. But she will face a serious dilemma if Chungcheong people's opinions
show a sign of turning in favor of the new plan.
(END)

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