Political opposition wasting opportunity for pre-election gains

Posted on : 2014-05-06 11:02 KST Modified on : 2014-05-06 11:02 KST
In fallout of Sewol tragedy, ruling party support has slipped, but opposition hasn’t picked up the slack

By Lee You Ju-hyun, staff reporter

A 43-year-old medical doctor who owns a hospital in Gyeonggi Province voted for the opposition candidates in the last general and presidential elections. Now the doctor, surnamed Lee, is questioning whether to vote at all in the upcoming municipal elections on June 4.

“Every time I look at the media reports on the Sewol tragedy, I get really worked up about the way President Park Geun-hye responded,” Lee said. “But I also get angry seeing the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD).”

“The opposition should be sending a message of emotional comfort to a wounded public, or finding the facts and bringing them to light,” Lee continued. “If not that, then they should at least have people out there at Paengmok Port giving food to the families of the missing.”

Opinion polls show many people sharing Lee’s complaints. Surveys by Gallup Korea showed approval ratings for the NPAD shooting up to 31% just after the Mar. 1 announcement of the merger between lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo’s New Politics Alliance and the Democratic Party, but since then they have steadily tumbled back down to the mid-twenties. While Park has lost around 10% of her support during the response to the ferry disaster, the opposition hasn’t been able to pick up the points that Park and the ruling party have lost.

“At its root, the Sewol disaster isn’t about political issues, so there’s no clear ‘ruling vs. opposition party’ situation taking shape right away,” said Yoon Hee-woong, director of the opinion analysis center for Min Consulting.

Most observers agree that the NPAD leadership should be deeply concerned about the stagnant approval numbers, but also say it should move cautiously.

“If we try to come out with a ‘judging the administration’ frame, voters are just going to say, ‘What exactly have you done right?’” said a senior NPAD official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It may be that lying low is the best course of action for us.”

But critics are already blasting the opposition’s passivity.

“The NPAD is afraid of getting hit by ‘stray bullets,’ so it just stands off on the sidelines observing things,” said political commentator Kim Jong-bae. “At the very least, they should have been on-site in Jindo as a kind of ‘public complaint team,’ hearing the specific complaints from family members and relaying them to the government.”

Lee Cheol-hee, director of the Doomun Political Strategy Institute, said the passive response means “people aren’t choosing between the Saenuri Party and the NPAD, they’re choosing ‘the Saenuri Party or not the Saenuri Party.’”

“It’s the kind of situation where the opposition would be able to enjoy some reflected gains if it had gotten just a few things right,” Lee said. “But apart from a few lawmakers revealing some key information about the accident, they haven’t accomplished much of anything.”

Predictions for the June 4 elections are currently mixed. Yoon said the opposition could enjoy some unexpected support at the last moment.

“The NPAD’s approval ratings haven’t changed a lot, but if you look at past elections, you’ll see that a lot of voters felt disappointed with the ruling party as election day got closer,” he said. “They’ve ended up voting for the opposition candidate as a ‘means to an end,’ a way of checking the administration.”

Kim said the key factor would be the NPAD’s ability to “organize voters’ anger and get out the vote. But that’s not looking very likely from the NPAD’s response to date,” he added.

 

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