Three Kims, Fading Toward the Back of History

The president of the United Liberal Democrats (ULD), Kim Jong-pil, has announced his retirement from the political world. Now, the “three Kims era,” which ruled Korean politics for the last 30 years, looks as though it will disappear into history where its glory and shame have been scattered.

- The lifeline of the three Kims era has been snapped. The three Kims’ power had already been greatly diminished after the 2000 general election and 2002 presidential election. However, the three Kims’ lifeline was maintained by their retainer groups, and the president of ULD, Kim, aimed for resurgence while remaining in his post.

However, the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), who called themselves former President Kim Dae-joong’s legitimate child, has obviously collapsed in this 17th general election.

There are still “traces” of them as Han Hwa-gap, the previous MDP leader, was elected and DJ’s first son, Kim Hong-il, entering the National Assembly as proportional representation number four. However, DJ’s relatives’ collective power has diminished. Additionally, Han is facing a prosecution examination.

Former president Kim Yeong-sam’s area seems to have fallen as well. Seo Chung-won, the previous GNP leader, has been confined to prosecution, and YS’s spokesman, Park Jong-oong, after failing to be publicly nominated in the GNP, ran for the election in Busan as an independent but only achieved third place. YS’s last son, Hyun-chul, gave up running for the race in his father’s political hometown of Gerjae, Kyungnam.

On top of this, even JP was turned away from his town of Choongchung, resulting in him leaving with the words, “Senility does not die, it just disappears quietly.” The party’s low voting rate of less than three percent made his proportional representation rank of number one useless.

- The meaning of three Kim era’s end; Inha University’s professor, Kim Yong-ho, added a historic meaning to this as the fall of authoritarian politics based on money, group, retainer, regional hegemony, and charisma and the start of media party, within the National Assembly party, a policy party. Kim explained that the rise of the 20s and 30s, who view politics as a “play culture” rather than its traditional meaning of “power game,” and 40s, who wish for a change in the original party’s structure, acted as a motivator.

Kyunghee University’s professor, Kim Ui-young, analyzed JP’s retirement, “His loss in this general election was due to his regional bossy politics, still striving with the three Kims’ inertia and logic, and ideological rigidity added to it.”

Seoul National University’s professor Jang Dal-joong criticized, “The end of ‘owner politics,’ based on regions, itself is a progress. However, whether the future holds an ideology and policy-centered party structure or a fall back to the old regionalism is a mystery. For a developed party structure, there must be a leading political power, however, at this time, none can be identified.”

Yong-Gwan Jung yongari@donga.com