Priority in Roh Moo-hyun Program

I remember I met Roh Moo-hyun at a Korean restaurant in Insa-dong, Seoul a week after the April 13 general election in 2000. He was wearing a blue jumper and looked down and out after his defeat in Busan. With a deep crease in his forehead, he looked more like a middle-aged blue-color laborer. He was called “Roh Moo-hyun, the fool” by his supporters. They called him a fool because he had fought a losing battle in Busan where people give a cold shoulder to his Millennium Democratic Party. Of course, I knew that the fool was up in arms against regionalism out of his affection for the country and I consoled him with all my heart.

We talked about the high mountain of regionalism over bottles of Dongdongju (traditional Korean liquor with sweet and bitter taste). He said that the mountain would never go away even after the end of the so-called Three Kims era. He emphatically said that it was leadership of unity not of division that would make the sour feelings disappear in the end. I am not sure whether he meant himself by saying the leadership of unity. I doubt even if he did I would pay attention. He was an outsider who had just lost a race and whose future in the Kim government looked so uncertain.

Two years have passed and he is now MDP presidential candidate. “Roh tempest” that gathered momentum in Gwangju virtually swept across the country. It was last fall that I met him again. At that time he was confident that he would steal the spotlight in three months once he came on the center stage, which I was not so convinced of. Being an overnight star doesn’t mean that everything will be just fine, I replied. My remark, implying “his unsophisticated way of speaking,” might have made him blush. Anyway, he became an overnight star as he predicted and I recollected our conversation about the leadership of unity two years ago.

The tempest, however, did not last two months. GNP candidate Lee Hoi-chang overtook him in recent polls. Despite the vote of confidence granted by his party members, he might have to put his candidacy under test if the party suffers a crushing defeat in the Aug. 8 by-election again. He is fighting with his back against the wall. If he loses, it will cost him his candidacy.

It makes sense what reformists in the party say – you cannot abandon the presidential candidate endorsed by the people just because you lost in the local elections. At the same time, it will be like getting away with murder if no one is held accountable for the defeat. He may beg to differ, but I think MDP president Han Hwa-gap should have resigned to take responsibility for the failure. He didn’t and uproars began to be heard just a day after the vote of confidence.

As public polls show, a series of corruption scandals involving President’s sons and aids dealt a fatal blow to the party in the local elections. The party, however, cannot argue that it has nothing to do with it since the president already left the party. The public still identifies the party with the Kim government. The denial will only make things worse after all those excuses they made for the government.

The people turned their back against the party, that’s for sure. Is it the party’s defeat that hurt Roh’s image or is it Roh’s sagging popularity that cost the party so dearly? It’s hard to tell. It’s like saying which came first? The chicken or the eggs. The two are intertwined.

One thing is ‘Roh’s unsophisticated way of speaking.’ It seems that he didn’t realize the change of nuance that can happen when spoken words are put into written ones. For instance, the audience just laughed when he said “I don’t mind turning the table upside down for the rest if I can resume the dialogue with the North.”

People frowned at the expression “turning the table upside down” when they read it in the newspaper rather than taking it an oxymoron. They must have felt that it’s too vulgar for a man running for presidency to use. People are sick and tired of authoritative and hypocritical speeches, but that doesn’t mean that they would enjoy rash and indiscreet words, especially not with a leader of unity.

Roh needs to take this seriously. This must be a top priority in Roh Moo-hyun Program. He might as well look at quotes of Guss Hiddink, a national hero who guided the national team into the World Cup quarterfinals.