Kim Keun-tae, one of the governing Millennium Democratic Party's seven presidential hopefuls, has dropped out of the party's primary election race. He seems to resign as presidential hopeful feeling frustrated by the results of previous two races in which he participated. Although it is Kim Keun-tae who had not bowed down to the severe torture of the military government, he was eliminated from a democratized party's race in the end. To many who saw the scene, it was surely a regretful incident.
We cannot but feel sorry observing that his slogan of "clean politics" is dying out even before that sees the light of day. What it means is his new trial failed to jump over the high walls of political reality, screened by money, organizing ability and regional antipathy.
Mr. Kim's withdrawal vividly shows us the limits of Korean politics. In fact, his confession that he received illegal political funds from an important figure of MDP, first, was welcomed by a lot of people. But it soon caused an opposite effect in the primaries. He had to listen to cynical remarks such as "pretending that only he is clean" from some election brokers and rival candidates. Violence of these blackballing actions means that Korean politics still remains at a low level.
However, Kim Keun-tae, as a statesman, is not dead yet. The effect of his withdrawal is slowly emerging by modifying the composition of MDP primaries. While Rhee In-je's "Majority Support Theory" has already fallen through some kinds of public opinion polls, Roh Moo-hyun's "Alternative Theory" is now gaining considerable persuasiveness from members of MDP and citizen.
In addition, there seems to be something to be corrected in the main opposition leader, Lee Hoi-chang of Grand National Party's strategies for the presidential election. First of all is, after the Mr. Kim's withdrawal, non-mainstream influential faction and the young group of GNP insisted that Mr. Lee introduce a group-based leadership system immediately when they strongly criticized his politics relying on his "cronies", and then the mainstream faction launched a counterattack saying that other members of their party were violating the view of the party.
That is, Kim Keun-tae's withdrawal may already turn up a kind of "a butterfly effect". Now the butterfly effect is gradually catching our eyes. Each survey result released recently shows that Roh Moo-hyun, a presidential hopeful in the ruling MDP, is running well ahead of both his strongest party rival, Representative Rhee In-je, and the main opposition leader, Lee Hoi-chang. It had never taken place that a presidential hopeful of MDP went ahead of that of the GNP before Mr. Kim's withdrawal.
Now the thing left to us is completing the MDP primaries well. Even though Mr. Kim dropped out of the race, we should complete the picture of "clean" primaries he'd have liked to accomplish.
The MDP primaries, however, have already been marred by illegal practices; some candidates were warned by the party election committee for giving money, or for wining and dining to voters. Also other candidates are entangled in the conspiracy theory. It is obvious that such obsolete behaviors are not helpful to anyone. Hence each presidential hopeful of MDP will have to brace themselves up to carry out the fair primaries. It remains to be our duty.