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S Korean primaries hold lessons

Former Seoul mayor Lee Myung-bak beat Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former South Korean president Park Jung-hee, in the presidential primary of the Grand National Party (GNP), at the party congress on Aug 20.

The party's electoral college consisted of more than 230,000 people, including party delegates, ordinary party members and citizens. After ballots were counted, Park led by 432 votes, but in the opinion polls Lee led by 8.8 percentage points -- or 2,884 votes -- and thus won the primary. As the overall difference between Lee and Park was only 1.5 percentage points, it was a highly contested election.

Here in Taiwan, the two main political parties, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), recently went through their own primaries, and it is worth assessing them in light of the GNP experience.

Most notable in this year's South Korean primary was the fact that it included opinion polls -- a first. Although the outcome of the polls only counted for 20 percent, in the end they turned out to be crucial to the outcome of the GNP primary. It is said the process was implemented with the example of Taiwan in mind.

Moreover, the opinion poll and the party vote were held on the same day so that the result of one would not influence the other. On this aspect, the GNP primary differed from the DPP's.

Aside from wanting to obtain a clearer impression of the opinions of voters, the reason the GNP carried out opinion polls was that it hoped to even out the strong localism in South Korean politics. South Korea's highest local administrative level is the special municipalities and provinces. In the past, voters have often been hostile to candidates from a different province.

This explains why the two candidates, apart from paying quick trips to their respective home provinces, made a point of emphasizing how their political views applied to South Korea as a whole. During his term as Seoul mayor, Lee Myung-bak restored the Cheonggye Stream that runs through the capital, an achievement that made him a nationally renowned politician. This was an important reason why he won the opinion poll and, in the end, the primary.

The second aspect of South Korean primaries is that they are a public affair. The GNP primary was commissioned to the Central Election Management Commission, comparable to Taiwan's Central Election Commission. It was held in a national government building and after the ballots were counted, the outcome of the vote could be confirmed quickly.

Similar to the DPP primary where, after loosing the primary, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) immediately said he supported presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), Park Geun-hye immediately acknowledged her defeat and announced her support for Lee, which won her widespread praise.

But South Koreans also believed that Lee's responsibilities went beyond that.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper wrote that "... the people are now paying close attention to how winner Lee will show his sincerity and forgiveness. This is how they will judge [whether] he has the leading abilities and the ability to exercise control necessary for a political leader."

The Korean example might serve to enlighten Hsieh and Su.

Bill Chang is a doctoral candidate at the University of New South Wales.

Translated by Anna Stiggelbout
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