Posted on 12/16/2006 6:30:01 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Ex-GNP Chief to Come Out of Retirement
On Lee Hoi-chang's Reappearance
The former Grand National Party chairman Lee Hoi-chang is to come out of retirement early next year to form an “anti-left” coalition of conservative forces, an aide said Thursday.
Lee’s former public relations secretary Lee Jong-koo told the Chosun Ilbo his former boss has “virtually returned to the political arena” with lectures criticizing the incumbent government. He said the one-time presidential candidate would make “big, conspicuous political strides” next year, “although some might call it an attempt to form a new political faction.”
In a series of lectures, the former GNP chief has recently said his task is preventing “leftists” from taking power. He added he did not care what people say about his return to the political scene. After losing the 2002 presidential election, Lee declared that he accepted his defeat and vowed to retire from politics. According to the aide, Lee Hoi-chang wants to help the main opposition party win the next presidential election by resuming his political activities but has no personal ambitions for the presidency. However, the former aide left open a back door, claiming some recent surveys showed that more than half of GNP supporters are in favor of Lee’s return to the political arena.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
Lately, they dove headlong into wooing voters on the center and sometimes on the left, making worrisome compromises.
Lee Myong-bak made himself clear time and again that he does not care about ideology because it is so passe. He was completely silent on N. Korean issues. Rather he packaged himself as somebody who can fix the current tottering S. Korean economy miraculously. Then N. Korea set off their nuke and he suddenly turned around and spouted a few tough words, and back to making some grandiose but dubious construction project such as the grand canal between Seoul and Pusan, eventually to Pyongyang.:-) He surrounds himself with former leftist activists who do not appear to break with their commie past. One of them is embroiled in some allegation that he is a close associate of a recently captured N. Korean spy Chang Min-ho, who is also a Korean-American. They used to belong to the notorious radical leftwing organization called "Sam-min-tu."
Park Geun-hye has a kind of 'princess complex.' That is, she apparently believes that her charm is so powerful that merely flashing it will changed her implacable political enemies. She does have a good popular appeal but she does not seem to realize that it does have its limit. She spends a lot of energy wooing voters in Cholla Provinces, the stronghold of pinko Kim Dae-jung. She and her associates went so far as to say that Kim Dae-jung's 'Sunshine' policy is great, but it is Roh Moo-hyun's 'Appeasement policy' which brought the current debacle, which raised many eyebrows of local conservatives including mine. I started to question her judgement. Kim Dae-jung is worse than Roh Moo-hyun when it comes to N. Korea.
So we have a sheer ideological opportunist with no morals, and a woman with decent morals but suspect judgement. Or a shifty businessman and a ditzy princess. This presents the opening for Lee Hoi-chang, the former presidential candidate who is still smarting from the last defeat. Lee Hoi-chang's constituency overlaps with Park Geun-hye's quite a bit. Lee Hoi-chang directly criticized Park for embracing Sunshine policy in recent days. Naturally, some Park's associates lashed back to him. Opinions are divided over his political return. He is certainly testing the water for potential presidential run.
Lee Myong-bak's camp is happy to see both figures clashing. Lee Myong-bak's popularity is currently ahead of Park. However, if Lee Hoi-chang raise his profile and his bid gains momentum, they will turn nasty in a heartbeat. For now, Lee Hoi-chang serves as a check against the frontrunners to junk basic conservative principles to get a few more votes, a worrisome chic raging in the opposition camp lately.
Ping!
I mean, to the extent any politician anywhere in the world these days can manage to be?
Will the young generation come over and vote in a conservative, even an anti communist at that? What would it take for the Hannaradang to capture such a key vote bank and take it from the opposition? Wouldnt North Korean threaten a provocation if it appeared in the closing days that the South was prepared to elect someone to go back on Sunshine/Appeasement? Or even send agents to assassinate someone of that stature were they to be a danger?
Yeah Tiger is he clean
He personally is, but some of those who used to be his associates had problems.
On the other hand, since many of accusations leveled against him in a run-up to the previous presidential election turned out to be unfounded, he is free of that baggage. As for his ideological stance, he hardened his stance since his last bid. No rhetoric of any kind suggesting he is going for pro-appeasement. Now that N. Korea has shown its color so blatantly, he no longer has to, IMHO.
The biggest worry now among conservatives is that the other two candidates are trying to get elected at all costs. They are from ostensibly 'conservative' party. Still judging from what they are saying, we are not sure if we will elect conservatives. If the new president is not conservative, what is the point of voting for opposition party, except just changing a horse? Different party but the same package.
Lee Myong-bak's messages are aiming for voter bloc who once backed Roh but disillusioned with him, still maintains residual hostility against Hannara Party. There are many of these 'new' conservatives. Their color is more like center-left in U.S., a la Democratic Leadership Council.
Lee Hoi-chang's viability depends on what would transpire in coming days. If S. Korea heads into heightened security crisis or acute economic crisis, his chances will go up. We all know what the security crisis would be. On the economic front, we have steeply appreciating won, which would eat into bottom line of export industry, which has been the only engine of growth. Domestic market has been dead for 4 years. And we have a staggering real estate bubble which could pop soon. Some local economic forecasts say that it will go early next year. This will result in a financial crisis as bad as '97 economic crisis.
If both security and financial crises occur together, residual hostility among young generation toward figures like Lee Hoi-chang could break down. To many of these folks, he comes as a stern school headmaster. Many young generation hates this image more than his policy or stance. However, in tough times, tough daddy is more reassuring. Sweet talkers pandering to them would be far less assuring. Therefore, his chances would go up dramatically.
As for N. Koreans, yes, I think they will do whatever they can, including assassination. It is the real possibility.
Correction:
On second thought, what you meant by "clean" must be "no commie influence." On that account, Lee Hoi-chang is clean. I thought you were referring to corruption problems.
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