YOUNGNAM: GNP LOYALTY AND REGIONALISM STILL REIGN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 002458 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/23/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KN KS SUBJECT: YOUNGNAM: GNP LOYALTY AND REGIONALISM STILL REIGN REF: SEOUL 02275 Classified By: A/DCM Joseph Yun. Reasons 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary: On 17-18 December, poloff traveled to Daegu and Busan to gauge the popularity of President Lee Myung-bak and the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) in the conservative stronghold of Youngnam -- traditional nomenclature for the south-eastern area of Korea comprised of North and South Gyeongsang Provinces as well as the cities of Busan and Daegu. Party loyalty was high among GNP party members and regionalism and personality took precedence over policy in voting patterns. In querying interlocutors about the split within the GNP between supporters of President Lee and of former party chief Park Geun-hye, most supported Park but were loathe to criticize the president. The trip provided a glimpse into the degree to which Korea's political party system was still struggling to evolve from personality-driven to policy-driven politics. End Summary. -------------- Party in Youngnam -------------- ¶2. (C) All of poloff's interlocutors agreed that for Korean politicians, personality trumps policy in garnering support. Political Science Professor Kim Tae-il of Yeungnam University in Daegu noted that Park Geun-hye's unhappy childhood (both her father, President Park Chung-hee, and her mother were assassinated) was particularly important to voters who felt a great deal of sympathy toward her. Park Jae-ryul, an adjunct professor at Shilla University in Busan, agreed with Kim and said that a candidate's background was the most important factor in gaining support. Voters did not care about a politician's policy and took an overly simplistic view toward voting, Park said. ¶3. (C) Despite popular and political empathy for Park Geun-hye, party loyalty was the primary concern for local National Assembly members. Professor Kim said that party loyalty was a bigger factor for politicians than constituent demands. For example, local lawmakers had opposed many of President Lee's policies, but they withdrew their opposition when the Blue House told them to. Kim gave two reasons for such strong party loyalty. First, there was insufficient democratization within the party. The nomination process that determines who is able to run on the party ticket was still centralized within the party leadership, making it hard for politicians to side with their constituents against the party. The second reason was that voters still cared more about regionalism than about issues. Many voters equated the GNP with Youngnam and would never vote for another party. The DP's lack of influence -- the party's support rate in Youngnam was 2 percent -- meant that there was no alternative to and thus no check on GNP lawmakers. -------------- Lee v. Park -------------- ¶4. (C) All interlocutors agreed that the driving force behind the factional split within the GNP was personality not policy differences. Not surprisingly, GNP staffers in Daegu -- a bastion of support for Park Geun-hye -- insisted that Park's rise in influence and popularity was only due to her own strength as a leader. At the same time, the staffers fully supported Lee Myung-bak's plan for developing the regional economies, which the President had announced just two days prior. The GNP officials were very careful to unequivocally support Park without criticizing Lee Myung-bak. ¶5. (C) Professor Kim of Yeungnam, himself clearly a Park fan, conceded that Park Geun-hye's popularity had been growing throughout the country in large part due to the failures of the Lee Myung-bak Administration. Eventually, Kim said, Park would have to articulate her own policy strategy, especially in the area of economic policy where her qualifications were unclear. Kim noted that if the economy improves significantly, Lee's support could increase at the expense of Park's, suggesting an inverse relationship between the two. ¶6. (C) GNP officials in Busan were more balanced than their Daegu counterparts. In fact, one worked for a pro-Park lawmaker, one for a pro-Lee lawmaker, and one worked for National Assembly Speaker Kim Hyung-o, who is nominally independent but was close to Lee throughout the election. They conceded that President Lee had played a role in Park's increasing popularity. They claimed Lee's failure to incorporate Park and her people into his administration had garnered much criticism among the Korean people, especially in light of President-elect Obama's decision to nominate his female political rival to a high-ranking cabinet position. Obama's decision had shocked Koreans, the GNP staffers said, and the party was currently urging the President to incorporate Park's people in the cabinet reshuffle likely to take place early next year. The staffers were pessimistic, however, that Lee would actually concede on this point. -------------- Overcoming Regionalism -------------- ¶7. (C) Clear throughout the visit to Daegu and Busan was the strong role regionalism continues to play in national politics. Kim Tae-il of Yeungnam University said there was no easy way to overcome the regional loyalties that continued to plague Korean politics. One option, he said, was to change the election laws to draw bigger electoral districts. Another was to institute a purely proportional election system. It would take a long time, Kim said, for regionalism to disappear, in part because parties used it to mobilize voters. Revising the voting system was the best way, but the elites were happy with the status quo and so near-term reforms were unlikely. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶8. (C) The degree to which politics are still driven by personality and regionalism is far clearer in Youngnam than it is in Seoul. In the December 2007 Presidential election, GNP candidate Lee Myung-bak won 57.9 percent support in Busan and 69.37 percent in Daegu -- much higher than the national average of 48.67 percent. Furthermore, all 12 of the lawmakers in Daegu are GNP and 16 out of 18 Busan lawmakers are in the ruling party. (NOTE: One of Busan's lawmakers is National Assembly Speaker Kim Hyung-o, who, because of his position, is nominally an independent though he ran on the GNP ticket.) Although the GNP and the DP have developed some ideological continuity, voters in the Gyeongsang provinces do not seem to be much swayed by differences over policy. As a result, politicians have little incentive to act on behalf of their constituents. Democratization within the GNP, which would alleviate some of the necessity for party loyalty, became a hot topic after the April nomination fiasco but has received little attention since then. STEPHENS