Korean Presidential Elections

In what was not a big surprise Korea elected the daughter of President (dictator) Park Chung-hee, Park Geun-hye of the Conservative Party as president.

Western media has already jumped on the fact that a woman has been elected in one of the more conservative countries in Asia. In fact she is the first elected leader in any north-east Asia nation. However, it's not quite the surprise that is seems. First off Korea is a two party system. Much like the U.S they do have third parties and people COULD vote for them, but only fringe libertarians, communists or radical isolationists ever do. People also vote along party lines in much the same way. I mean if the republicans had put a monkey in an Elvis suit up against Obama he would have pulled 40% of the popular vote. It's similar in Korea, though perhaps less partisan. She is also the successor to outgoing President Lee Myung-bak who has a very mixed legacy. On one hand his aides and family members have been involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals in Korean history. While no one can prove he had any knowledge doubts will exist forever. That being said he weathered the economic collapse of 2008 better than just about any world leader and in a country where the economy will always be the number one issue he was a solid leader.

Also, western media will inevitably mix up a woman leader with progress. Park Geun-hye is as conservative as they get and her support base comes almost entirely from people over 45. Her opponent, liberal leader Moon Jae-in, was actually imprisoned by her father in the 1970's for engaging in pro-democracy rallies. However, General Park is responsible for the Korean economic miracle in the 1970's and many older people remember that era as a time when every year they ate more and North Korea seemed more distant rather than as an era when opposition leaders disappeared in the middle of the night and union leaders and student activists were gunned down in the streets by the police. The younger generation who grew up with the wealth of modern Korea seem far more interested in getting jobs and affordable housing and have more mixed feelings about General Park. Women also want more equality in one of the most gender dominated societies in east Asia. Many of them voted for Moon because he is the more socially liberal one.

Other issues were the ever increasing gap in wealth, un- or under employment and North Korea's recent satellite launch. Wealthy Koreans are as rich as any Koreans in Korean history but poor Koreans haven't really had their lot improved since the 1960's. The Korean job market just isn't creating enough full time jobs and given that virtually every Korean goes to university a university degree means much less than it did twenty years ago. Also, because Korean universities often lack international standards only people with overseas degrees are getting these jobs (ie - the super rich who can afford to send their kids to study in New York for four years). The north launching a satellite in to space hasn't made waves that you might think it would, I mean at the end of the day it's still an impoverished nation that can't feed or house it's own people, but it did make hard line Park Geun-hye more appealing than reconsilliatory Moon Jae-in.

Park Geun-hye may be the better candidate for me, as she is very friendly to foreign investment and commerce. Liberal ideology can be much more isolationist so on an entirely selfish note it's probably good for me that she won. However she ensures that Korean society has five more years of fiscal and social conservatism and as someone who wants Korea to succeed I feel that needs to change. I'm sure it will as the war generation dies off and make room for their more worldly children and grandchildren. However in the short term (almost certainly the rest of my time in Korea) the status quo is in place.