By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
South Korea's current political circles face ideological ambiguity with the conservative opposition party taking a middle of the road stance and the self-proclaimed liberal party losing ideological color, an American professor said Tuesday.
``The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) fits the basic criteria of a moderate conservative party. They tend to be pro-business, pro-free trade and pro-free enterprise. They also tend to support traditional values,'' Andy Jackson, who teaches American government in the Lakeland College bridge program at Ansan College in Gyeonggi Province, told The Korea Times.
``Of course, tradition values vary from culture to culture. In the Korean context, being conservative means being anti-communist and supporting the alliance with the United States,'' he said.
Jackson said the GNP has moderated its views over the past decade and old ``party of the dictatorship'' label hardly fits now, referring to the selection of Lee Myung-bak as the party's presidential candidate for December's election.
``Their candidate (Lee) was once arrested for his protests against the Park Chung-hee government,'' he said.
``If Lee wins the upcoming election and the GNP continues moderating its views, it could open the way for the creation of a far-right party of people who feel that the GNP has gone soft on communism.''
The professor categorized Lee as a ``pragmatist.''
``His business background would suggest that he would support free-market solutions to boost a sluggish economy but his canal idea is a pure Keynesian public works project,'' he said.
``Lee has criticized the Roh administration's North Korean policies but has also shown a willingness to work with Pyongyang on joint economic projects,'' he said. ``I suspect that a Lee presidency would not represent a big turn to the right.''
Jackson lamented the pro-government United New Democratic Party (UNDP), the successor of the now-defunct Uri Party, ``has no soul.''
``An unfortunate side effect of the recent reorganization is that the UNDP is an empty vessel that will be filled by whoever wins the presidential nomination,'' he said.
``Clearly the party has liberal and progressive elements just as center right parties have liberals and traditionalists, which is what you would expect from a center-left party in Korea's democratic system with single-member districts and a directly-elected head of government.''
The ratification of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement will be a litmus test to show which group is dominant in the UNDP since liberals tend to support free trade while progressives struggle against it, he said.
As for the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), he said, ``If I had to pigeonhole the DLP, I would tend to say they are socialist. They have their own divisions but are probably the most ideologically cohesive party in Korea."