Revive the spirit of compromise in politics

Jaung Hoon
The author is an emeritus professor at Chung-Ang University and a columnist for the JoongAng Ilbo.

The fiery day of June 10, 1987 is etched on the heart of my generation. The summer heat in the plaza in front of the Seoul City Hall added fumes to thousands of protesting crowds. The chants for democracy from office workers, citizens and university students roared across the country. The undying democracy fever finally humbled the military regime to its knees to make the landmark June 29 Declaration to amend the Constitution to enable the people to directly elect their president. The long dark night finally came to an end to open a new day of light and hope for Koreans by the end of June.

Thirty-seven years have passed since, but the burning hope and expectations for democracy have long been exhausted and descended into ashes. Democracy today is nearly dead. Despite the irregularities in nominations, foul play, slander and defamatory campaign up to the April 10 parliamentary elections, the majority Democratic Party (DP) ended up winning an overwhelming majority in the new legislature. The respect for the system and rules that sustain the life of democracy no longer can be expected from the dominant opposition party. The presidential office and the People Power Party (PPP) are governing the country with little regards to the rule of law, the foundation of democracy. The ferocious and hysteric manners of mainstream politics bear the symptoms of the democracies before their breakdown.

I bring up the history of democratization because the sickness of Korean politics is too deep to be cured through one or two fixes such as the shift from a single five-year presidency to a two-term four-year presidency or a return to the past electoral district office of political parties. A new system adopted while the attitudes and mindset of the people remain the same can only serve the interests of a certain political force.

If we cannot expect any difference from a change in the system, we must turn to historic lessons. We may find answers to our problems if we calmly reflect on the marvelous transition from the June 10 watershed democracy movement to the June 29 announcement on constitutional reform toward the first direct presidential election later that year. One is the spirit of compromise during the tumultuous period and the other is the role of moderates in containing the radicals in their camp.

Compromise played a pivotal role in acting out the measures announced on June 29 to precipitate the historic presidential election in December. The first example of the compromise was the June 29 Declaration in which the general-turned-presidential candidate Roh Tae-woo vowed to comply with citizens’ wishes, paving the way for a constitutional reform and a direct presidential election. Longtime dissident Kim Dae-jung was pardoned and reinstated to run for presidency freely.

The military regime could have used its force, as it had done in the past, to coerce and tame the people, but it avoided going down this path. The democracy movement forces also yielded to let the military regime to administer and oversee the first direct presidential election.

The roles of the moderates in the competing regimes were decisive in keeping the path toward democracy by containing the bias toward the extremities in the heat of the democratic movement. The democracy movement front was composed of diverse groups — university students, religious figures, labor activists, progressive activists and common citizens who joined the protest. Many were unhappy with the idea of compromising with the military regime.

But the two symbolic opposition leaders — Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung — kept to the compromise path through persuasion or command over the hard-line forces. Their show of flexibility and agility helped embolden the voices of moderates in their rivaling military regime. For instance, the two leaders of the opposition camp did not insist that the new Constitution include a provision mandating the military’s political neutrality.

The military regime was also tensely divided between the hard-liners and moderates. But Roh Tae-woo persistently emphasized compromise for the sake of preventing a major clash ahead of the historic Summer Olympics to be held in Seoul the following year.

Democracy does not collapse overnight. It falls after bearing hundreds and thousands of wounds. The frenzied and unilateral ways of the supersized opposition party are carried over in the new National Assembly to further ravage the practice of compromise. The DP shuns the tradition of a majority yielding the chair of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee to the smaller mainstream party out of respect for engaging in politics. The party is out to push for presidential impeachment, a poor habit undermining the presidential system after the first-ever — failed — attempt to oust President Roh Moo-hyun from power in 2004.

Watching Korean democracy being already beaten and feeble at the age of 37, I wonder if we can ever expect a leader who pays heed to the voices of moderates instead of dancing to the tunes of hard-liners. Will we ever see the end to the practice of amending laws and party rules for selfish purposes? Where are the citizens who applauded the triumph of democracy through the compromise among moderates in June 37 years ago?

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.