From Transition to Power Alternation by Carl Saxer

Author:Carl Saxer [Saxer, Carl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Social Science, Reference, Developing & Emerging Countries
ISBN: 9781136710711
Google: sQWBAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-08-21T01:18:27+00:00

Chapter 5

Attempting Democratic Consolidation, 1993–1997

KIM YOUNG-SAM WAS INAUGURATED ON 15 FEBRUARY 1993. HE HAD begun the democratic transition as a leading opposition politician, then changed to the ruling party in 1990, and finally in late 1992 won the presidency. He was the first president in more than thirty years without a military background. However, he faced the immense task of deepening and consolidating democracy, a task that his predecessor had not been able to achieve.

With election Kim Young-sam had achieved his goal, he had cured his taef’ŏngnyong pyŏng, his ‘presidential disease’.1 He saw it as his mission to achieve clean and open politics which he saw as a most pressing problem, and he stated that “to get clean politics, deciding important national affairs must be done transparently like in a glass bottle.”2 Kim wanted to initiate the “reforms from above” and then gradually propagate them to the people. In his inaugural address, he stated that he saw three urgent tasks ahead: “We must from the beginning start with three urgent tasks: (1) expose corruption, (2) improve the economy, and (3) restore official discipline.” He continued: “our enemy is the corruption in society which is destroying the country bit by bit. In exposing corruption there can be no sanctuary. Under no circumstances can there be any sanctuaries.”3

His new government had four major policy goals—a clean government, a sound economy, a healthy society, and peaceful unification. This, however, raised the level to which the public would hold the president impossibly high. By promising a better tomorrow with clean politics, prospering economy, and a healthy society, the president promised the impossible, thereby ultimately guaranteeing his own failure.

Kim Young-sam believed that only through “shock-therapy” would it be possible to eradicate the Korean disease, and the reform initiative would often only involve a very few close associates in the Blue House.4 Combined with the sense of mission that the president felt and the very short tenure of the ministers who filled the administration, it meant that the initiative for reforms would remain in the Blue House throughout the tenure of Kim Young-sam.5 And this was, according to Kim Jun-man, the style of the new president. His experience as an opposition politician had through the decades taught him to hold all his cards close to his chest, making sure that nobody would be able to challenge him successfully.6

As the new president announced his first cabinet, there were several surprises. For the first time the head of the notorious Agency for National Security Planning would be an academic, Kim Deok, a well-known professor at Hanguk University of Foreign Studies. The foreign ministry went to another well-known professor, Han Sung-joo, and Han Wan-sang, yet another professor, was appointed deputy prime minister. However, the inexperience of these, although widely respected, people in administrative affairs, meant that real power would rest in the hands of the seven senior presidential secretaries in the Blue House who controlled access to the president.

Lee Young-jo argues that, because of the strong legacies of authoritarianism the “reforms could only be implemented in a surprise attack.

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