By Andy Jackson
With 2010 upon us, it is time for a few predictions about Korean politics over the next 12 months.
The single biggest political event will be local elections on June 2. Like the previous local elections in 2006, these will be seen as much a judgment of the sitting president as an exercise in local democracy.
The conservative Grand National Party won a landslide victory in 2006, which helped cement then-President Roh Moo-hyun's lame duck status and caused rifts in his Uri Party that eventually led to its dissolution two years later. The 2010 contest will likely produce major shakeups in the political landscape as well.
With that in mind, here are some predictions for this year.
1. The Grand National Party will win a small majority in the June 2 local elections: The Democratic Party will make gains in the June elections. Considering how many seats the GNP has to defend after their overwhelming victory in 2006, it would be a major surprise if the Democrats did not regain some of their previously lost ground. Despite that, the GNP will likely hold on to a majority of mayoral positions, governorships and local council seats across the country. There are several reasons for that.
First, the GNP remains more popular than the Democrats. The latest poll on the parties by the survey firm Realmeter has the GNP with 43 percent support and the Democrats at only 25 percent, with the rest supporting minor parties or refusing to support any party. While those numbers likely are the result of a temporary bump for the GNP after the recent budget struggles, the conservative party had consistently been 8 to 12 percent ahead of its progressive counterpart for most of 2009.
While President Lee Myung-bak's support levels are not great (generally in the mid 40s), they are much better than what Roh had in 2006, so the anti-president backlash should not be as big a factor this time around.
The GNP also benefits from having a ``deeper bench." As a result of their victories in the 2002 and 2006, the party has a larger pool of potential candidates who have successfully run for office and who have served in local government. The GNP will be able to run a full slate of relatively strong candidates in almost every part of the country, something the Democrats will find difficult to do.
The GNP is also helped by the fact that its geographic base in the southeastern Yeongnam (Gyeongsang) region is larger than the Democrats' base in the southwestern Honam (Jeolla) area.
2. A challenger to Park Geun-hye will emerge in the GNP: The former GNP chairwoman enjoys overwhelming support right now and would easily be the party's candidate if the next presidential election were held today.
However, she is the leader of the minority faction within the GNP leadership. Once the local elections are over, members of the ``Lee Myung-bak faction" of the party, leery of being pushed aside as the 2012 elections near, are going to start looking in earnest for a champion to challenge her.
Some of the likely challengers include Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon (although he says he will stay as Seoul mayor if reelected in June), Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Moon-su and GNP Chairman Chung Mong-joon. Chung is also the Vice Chairman of FIFA and his public profile will likely rise during the World Cup in South Africa later this year.
All of those candidates have their flaws and a bruising struggle between one of them and Park could set up someone like Assembly woman Na Kyung-won, who is widely liked if not passionately so, to emerge as a consensus candidate in 2012.
3. Ryu Si-min's star will fade: Roh Moo-hyun's Health and Welfare Minister was off the political radar at the beginning of 2009. That changed with Roh's suicide last May.
In the wake of Roh's death, progressives rallied to Ryu as the public figure considered the most loyal to Roh and his legacy. With the Democratic Party divided by factional fighting and still relatively unpopular, no figure within the party has risen to challenge his position.
The problem is that Ryu, while being a good progressive, is a poor politician. He ran a weak campaign for president in 2007 and was forced to drop out of the running for his party's nomination early in the campaign period.
To maintain his status as the progressives' brightest star, Ryu would have to run in and win a relatively high profile race in the June local elections, such as for mayor of Seoul or governor of Gyeonggi Province. The problem is that Ryu would probably lose to the incumbent GNP office holders for either position. If Ryu does lose such a race, or if he declines to run, he will find himself eclipsed by someone else by the end of the year.
Who will the next progressive standard bearer be? Things are so mixed-up with the Democrats right now that I would not dare to venture a guess.
Andy Jackson has taught courses on American government, and has been writing on Korean politics and other issues for four years. He is the chairman of Republicans Abroad-Korea. He can be reached at andyinrok@yahoo.com.