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