The results of the South Korean legislative election on April 9 will seem very familiar to observers of Taiwan’s elections. With the electoral victories of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in March 2000 in Taiwan and of South Korean presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun in December 1997 and December 2002, voters in Taiwan and South Korea elected representatives of what had been the true democratic opposition during the several decades of dictatorship in both countries.
Yet voters believed the governments of Chen and Roh failed in a number of aspects, including economics and efficiency.
The legislative election of Jan. 12 and the presidential election of March 22 in Taiwan and the presidential election of Dec. 19 last year and the legislative election of April 9 in South Korea reflected voters’ concern with economics and efficiency. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak beat the second candidate by more than 22 percent, while president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won by almost 17 percent.
In both legislative elections, conservative forces with ties to the new president won overwhelmingly. Thus, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) won two-thirds of the seats, while in the recent South Korean legislative election the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) won an absolute majority with 153 of 299 seats.
In addition, the GNP has many potential allies among the more conservative splinter parties, who won an additional 32 seats.
There are at least five similarities between Taiwan and South Korea. First, both Lee and Ma gained many votes from voters dissatisfied with the economic leadership as well as the poor governmental efficiency of Chen and Roh. This clearly hurt the chances of presidential candidates Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Chung Dong-young. Chung tried to gain a legislative seat in the recent election, but lost when the GNP moved a son of the late Hyundai founder, worth US$3 billion, from the south to Seoul to run against him.
Second was voter turnout. Although the GNP won handily in South Korea, voters have become alienated from politics by abuses from both sides.
Many expressed this alienation by not going to the polls. The voter turnout rate of only 46 percent was a record low in South Korea, resembling the record low in Taiwan’s democratic legislative elections of less than 59 percent in January.
Third, regionalism was an important factor in the South Korean legislative election. The United Democratic Party (UDP), South Korea’s equivalent to the DPP, won 28 of the 34 seats in the Cholla region, Kim’s home, and Cheju island, two areas in the southwest. These 28 seats accounted for about 35 percent of the 81 seats won nationally by the UDP. Similarly, the DPP has done best in southwestern Taiwan.
Both areas have strong histories of neglect from the central governments and both have been key areas of support for democratic activists during the respective democracy movements.
Fourth, both sides of politics in both countries have been subject to considerable factionalism. During the presidential election, the KMT unified behind Ma, but in both legislative elections politicians disappointed in their failure to receive nominations created splits. However, the splitters proved more effective in South Korea than in Taiwan. Four minor parties won seats in both the district and the party-based proportional representation ballots.
Park Geun-hye, the daughter of military dictator Park Chung-hee, lost the leadership of the GNP and the presidential nomination to Lee. As a result, several of her supporters also failed to gain GNP legislative nominations, so they ran a ticket of those “close to Park,” that won six individual district seats as well as eight seats in the proportional representation party ballot.
Park herself never formally supported the “close to Park” ticket, but its success has clearly helped her gain political strength. In addition, the Liberty Forward Party of Lee Hoi-chang, a dissident conservative who ran third in the presidential election last December, won 18 seats.
Finally, both countries, especially in the legislative elections, had accusations of vote-buying.
There are also some differences between Taiwan and South Korea. Political rallies in South Korea seemed small-scale in comparison with Taiwan. I saw only one rally where the audience might have reached 1,000.
Most legislators held their rallies at major intersections and a continual stream of cars and buses often separated the politicians from their audiences. Politicians often spoke from campaign trucks that had a speaker’s rostrum as well as a screen to help people see the candidate and his supporters. South Korean campaign trucks did not have space for people to climb up on top of the truck.
Though politicians in both Taiwan and South Korea have disappointed many voters with their inefficiencies and corruption, Taiwan and South Korea remain the only two “third-wave” democracies in Asia today. They join India and Japan as the four stable Asian democracies.
In creating stable democracies, Taiwan and South Korea have achieved something both important and valuable. We can only urge citizens of Taiwan and South Korea to continue to demand a higher quality of leadership from their politicians.
Bruce Jacobs is professor of Asian languages and studies and director of the Taiwan Research Unit at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
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