THE ELECTION to the Korean presidency of long time bourgeois dissident Kim Daejung is no victory for democracy. It is however a defeat for the ruling camp and its policy of regional divide-and-rule.
Dae-jung, previously a popular candidate in the 1970 presidential elections against the repressive President Park (1961-1979), is from the Cholla provinces in the South west of the country. Under Park's rule there had emerged a strategic pole of military, political and economic power whose centre of gravity was the Taegu/North Kyonsang provinces (TK) in the South East. He followed a conscious policy of excluding those from the west and rewarding those from his own area, the TK provinces.
For the first time in fifty years the presidential nominee of the party in power failed to win. The election results underline the extent to which regional antagonism is still relevant today, with Daejung doing markedly better in the Cholla provinces and considerably worsd in TK.
Some of the continuing policestate practices are likely to be curtailed and some but not all political prisoners released. Overall, however, this victory does not herald major progressive change. Daejung is a very corrupt man - as much a product of Korean bourgeois politics as he is its supposed nemesis.
Kim Dae-jung has vowed to follow the conditions laid down by the IMF which ensure that he has very limited room for manoeuvre. His basic goal is to pay back the Fund as soon as possible and resume an independent Korean economic policy. The chances of being able to do this in the two years he has set himself seem virtually non-existent.
Courting right
Kim Dae-jung has spent a good deal of time since his return to politics courting the right wing. He has taken his distance from the student movement, praised the achievements of President Park, and even addressed a gathering of geriatric anti-communists - something he would have once found distasteful.
Last year, he sat firmly on the fence during the biggest General Strike in Korean history, fearing that any support he might show for the workers would damage his presidential chances. He made it clear before the presidential vote that he would support the release of mass murderers and TK generais Chun and Rho in the name of 'national reconciliation'.
President Kim had become a liability to the ruling camp between the January's General Strike and November"'s IMF bailout. Kim had tried to rule in the manner of an incorruptible Confucian sage, but a whole series of money scandals and the mounting tide of corporate bankruptcies robbed him of these claims. He had neither broken with Supporters or tod candidate Loe Hoi-chang. the political corruption of the past or created a bright future of global competitiveness.
The conviction and imprisonment of his second son, Kim Young-chul, on bribery charges following the bankruptcy of the Hanbo business group summed up Kim's limitations. The fate of Hanbo was a early warning of the much wider problems that the chaebols were soon to encounter.
Kim Young-sam's New Korea Party was the result of an unholy alliance in 1990 which brought together his Pusan-based organisation with that of the TK forces of Rho and Chun. Formerly know as the Democratic Liberal Party, it was not actually renamed until late 1995 after the arrest of Chun and Rho.
The renaming was part of the attempted "settling accounts with history" which led to the trials of Chun and Rho on charges of mutiny and massacre. There was a large element of opportunism involved since Kim Young-sam used them to stamp his authority against their supporters - the TK forces.
Retrospectively it also ought to be seen as a genuine, limited attempt to rewrite the bourgeois rules of the game to rule out the violent overthrow of the constitutional order by the Army. The verdict however did not rule out the violent suppression of pro-democracy movements in the future.
The Washington Post suggested recently that Dae-jung will have to preside over a National Assembly majority hostile to his interests, but this results from the mistaken application of western party political norms to Korea.
Labour candidate Kwon Younggil suggested in a recent interview with the Korean language progressive monthly, Mal, that organisations like the Grand National Party should not be honoured with the title "party". They lack the most elementary of programmes; and never out last the defeat, defection or imprisonment of a leading personality.
This explains why figures seemingly from the right and left of the Korean political spectrum can unite with a minimum of ideological fuss.
Even though Kwon Young-gil's 'People's Victory 21' said that it was building for the future and did not expect its candidate to win, it must have been disappointed with the election result. Overall, Kwon Young-gil took 1.2 per cent of the vote to finish fourth in the field of seven. The campaign suffered from lack of money and the monopoly of media attention given to the three bourgeois candidates.
Falling unionisation The concentration of Korean union membership in large and heavy industrial concerns did not help. The overall union rate in Korea has fallen from a high of 18 per cent in 1987 to 12.6 per cent today.
There are restrictions on teachers and civil servants forming unions. There are also still legal restrictions on union officials' elec. tioneering activity. At least two union leaders were arrested for supporting Kwon in front of their memberships.
The election was cynically timed for final exams week. This may have limited the student vote to day itself was a national holiday.
The biggest problem, however, is undoubtedly the lack of awareness of the difference between a bourgeois dissident and a labour candidate. The majority of progressive students undoubtedly voted for Kim Dae-jung in order "waste" their vote. Political education must be a priority for the new labour party.
The whole economic strategy pursued by this so-called Asian tiger is in chaos. Average income has been halved in a matter of months. The stock market has collapsed.
In 1996, the total market value of the listed stocks came to 117.37 trillion won (US $139 million), at an exchange rate of 844.2 won/ dollar. On Christmas Eve 1997, it stood at 66.35 trillion won (US $33.9 billion), at an exchange rate of 1,964.80 won/dollar. This is less than that of ING of the Netherlands, the world's seventieth largest corporation, whose combined stocks total $34.7 billion.
Korea has been bailed out three times: in 1969 (by the IMF), in 1983 (by Japan) and in 1997 (by the IMF and thirteen countries at the time of writing).
This indicates a fundamental structural problem. strategies on which the chaebols are based leaves them highly exposed the steep drop in the price of a given commodity as well as the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
When Hanbo failed in January 1997, its debts amounted to sixteen times its net capital worth. When it crashed, the reverberations were felt across the entire economy.
Debts
Each of the failed chaebols has gone under with incredibly large debts. Hanbo was unusual only in offering a textbook illustration of political corruption and economic miscalculation. Halla, one of the top twenty, had debts amounting to twenty times its assets when it crashed in November.
The long economic boom of the East Asian region appears to have entered a period of development with an undertone of stagnation, with levels of profit falling below 5 per cent for the first time in twenty-five years.
The region is in crisis because of what Marx called the tendency of the rate of profit to fall with the generalisation across the region of a given level of technological infrastructure. South Korea recently celebrated the sale of its ten millionth automobile, for example.
The breaking up of the chaebols will probably now occur under the auspices of foreign capital and without democratisation. The lack of democratic control will facilitate foreign take-overs under the worst possible terms for Korean workers.
The first major step taken by the Korean government was the ending of rules under which a whole range of Japanese goods, including cars and electronic goods, were premarket.
Because Park slavishly imitated the Japanese industrial portfolio, a whole range of industries may now be sitting ducks for Japanese corporate sharpshooters. By the end of next year, the ceiling on foreign ownership of domestic firms, raised to 55 per cent on December 30, will be eliminated entirely.
Japanese ownership of Korean industry would recreate a potentially explosive dynamic, with the re-emergence of intertwined class and national grievances. The Japanese bourgeoisie would have to proceed cautiously, with nominal control remaining with Korean bosses.
What of the possible fightback by the unions? The battle, if it comes, will be in the heavy industries, a repeat of the general strike of December 1996-January 1997. This time, it will be the IMF that will be pressing the unions, not the Korean bourgeoisie.
New labour law In order to carry out the financial reform promised to the IMF, the government will have to rewrite the labour law. It is expected to try to do this in January or February. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has promised an all-out general strike should this happen.
Two issues are likely to be central to any mass mobilisation. The first is the provision regarding redundancies in the case of mergers and acquisitions. As a result of last year's general strike, no mass lay off can occur before the year 2000. The government must overturn this if the Korean economy is to become respectable for foreign inThen there is the legal stipulation that workers must be compensated before other creditors are paid off in the case of bankruptcy. This is crucial since Korea has no unemployment scheme in the case of lay-offs.
The state-sanctioned union organisation, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, is more friendly to the IMF. Its leader, Park In-sang, suggested in a recent meeting with Dae-jung that he write to the IMF and other Western donors pledging his organisation's willingness to observe the terms of the bailout agreement.
These are pretty bleak times in Korea, but Koreans have not lost either their rich sense of humour or their rebellious spirit.
There is a joke doing the rounds in Korea about the meaning of the letters "IMF". We are told these letters actually stand for the words: "I'M F-ired". The student movement has recently improved upon this little piece of mordant wit. What does IMF stand for? I'M F. ighting back. * A longer version of this article will appear in International Viewpoint.
Socialist Durio• IBE AN