Experts rate Kim gov¡¯t as ¡®average¡¯

Professors of universities, as well as other political experts, have assessed the performance of the first half of Kim Dae-Jung`s administration as less than average, giving it 4.55 points on a scale of 9 with a score of 5 being average.

The assessment resulted from a joint effort by the vernacular Dong-A Ilbo and the Internet scholastic organization "Issues Today" through questionnaires sent to 251 experts August 9-18.

Regarding the current government`s overall achievements in the first half, 35.5% responded positively with 5.2% "very good" and 30.3% "generally good." On the other hand 46.3% responded negatively with 29.5% stating "there are problems" and 16.8% "there are serious problems." About 18.2% responded that the government was average.

Taking areas of achievements individually, the respondents considered as successes, the unification diplomacy policy (61.8%) and foreign currency crisis response (24.3%). The areas considered failures were the political reform (37.8%), educational policy (18.3%), economic policy (14.7%), and health and welfare policy (12.7%).

Taking 12 individual topics and having the experts in related fields give scores with 9 being the best, unification diplomacy received the highest score with 6.6, information-communication policy received 5.3, culture received 4.3, and economic reform received 4.2.

The experts considered the current government¡¯s merits as the ability to attract international cooperation (51.0%), and the president`s ability to run the nation (39.0%). The demerits of the government were considered to be the inability of the government to adequately face reform opponents (17.9%), President Kim`s authoritarianism (13.9%), and hasty policy drives (11.2%).