No qualified candidates for president?

It is inappropriate that Rep. Lee Hae-Chan, chief policy maker of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), stated that there are no qualified potential candidates for presidency among the self-named presidential hopefuls. Rep. Lee contended that qualified presidential candidates should be armed with the power of endurance and capabilities of persuasion and arbitration of disputes. However, these requirements are not necessary only for the presidential aspirants but also for the incumbent leaders of the ruling camp. The crisis facing the nation nowadays stems merely from economic difficulties, but this is directly concerned with the ruling camp`s leadership. The current crisis derives from the political vacuum or the failure to display the vision and aspiration needed to overcome national difficulties as well as the division of society. Since the ruling MDP lent some of its lawmakers to its coalition partner, the United Liberal Democrats (ULD), to enable it to form a floor negotiating group last year, bipartisan politics have been virtually lost and the our society as a whole has been plagued by the divisionism between ``our side`` and ``your side.``

For the persistent political disarray, the ruling camp has steadfastly blamed the opposition party`s obstructions and anti-reform resistance from reactionary elements. Nonetheless, it is very doubtful that the ruling camp has done its best to persuade its rival party and overcome complications by mediation. But rather, the ruling party impressed the people with maneuvers to cope with these problems from a position of force by using its numerical superiority in lawmakers, which has consequently deepened social complications and disunity.

Hence, as the chief policy maker, Rep. Lee ought to perceive and reflect the shortcomings on the part of the MDP leadership before expressing his concern over the lack of qualified presidential candidates. On this ground, he should exert his utmost efforts to rectify state affairs through the remainder of his term.

Of course, under the present political landscape characterized by partisan regionalism, whoever takes the helm of government will face a hard time. With this in mind, the ruling party should be the first to endeavor to alleviate regional divisionism. Discouragingly, however, the ruling camp is rather clinging to the regional confrontational framework through its policy alliance with the ULD and the Democratic People`s Party.

That the MDP chief policy maker underlined a potential crisis after the next presidential election, while putting aside the aforesaid problems, can be interpreted as exposing his underlying intent to inflate the sense of the current crisis for political exploitation ahead of the 2002 presidential vote. The question of who will become the next president is in the hands of the people. Rep. Lee`s self-judgment that there are no qualified presidential hopefuls even one and a half years before the election is feared to only deepen political instability and the sense of crisis in the whole of society.