Hopes, VIPs to Attend S. Korean Inaugural

SEOUL —  Michael Jackson, Cory Aquino and Richard Riordan will be there. Nelson Mandela and George Bush can’t make it. Elizabeth Taylor called in sick.

After a bitter winter of economic turmoil, South Korea is preparing to inaugurate former dissident Kim Dae Jung on Wednesday as its eighth president, sending him to live in the presidential palace from which his predecessors once ordered his death.

About 40,000 people, including a smattering of celebrities, former leaders of Japan, Germany and the Philippines, the mayor of Los Angeles and about 2,500 Korean Americans are expected to attend. Disabled people and members of “the formerly alienated classes” have also been invited.

The swearing-in will be held outdoors, with no roof over Kim’s head, “to reflect the new president’s will to share the joys and sorrows with the people, rain or shine,” organizers say.

In keeping with the cash-strapped times, the inauguration will be a frugal affair, with no gala parties or lavish balls to follow. But Kim and his aides are determined to use the ceremony, which represents the first peaceful transfer of power from the ruling party to an opposition party in South Korea’s troubled postwar history, to lift the spirits of this anxious nation and usher in an era of reconciliation, sweeping reform and economic rebirth.

Soaring Popularity

Kim, 74, was elected with just 40.3% of the vote, but his popularity ratings have soared to more than 80% in the seven weeks since. The lame-duck administration of outgoing President Kim Young Sam virtually disappeared after election day; Kim Dae Jung’s transition team has in large measure been running the country; and South Koreans of all political stripes give him high marks for managing the economic crisis and for brokering a crucial deal between labor, business and government that will let companies for the first time fire excess workers, with controls.

About 17,600 civil servants will also get the chop, proving that Kim intends to spread the pain as fairly as possible.

But the new president will need to draw heavily on public goodwill, his personal courage and his considerable political wiles to tackle daunting problems ahead.

Kim will in practice rule jointly with the International Monetary Fund, which is demanding painful reforms in exchange for the $60-billion global bailout plan that South Korea accepted in November. Per capita income is already plummeting, from $10,548 in 1996 to $6,600 this year, the LG Economic Research Institute forecasts. Economic growth in 1998 is projected at 1%, if that. Unemployment is expected to reach 4.5% or 5%. About 50,000 people are being thrown out of work each month, and the economy is not expected to hit bottom for at least another eight months.

“Korea has no safety net,” warned Korea University professor Choi Jang Jip. To avert disaster, he says, the unemployed will need benefits for at least a year, until the economy begins creating jobs again. But he worries that if Kim pushed such a package--even if Korea could afford it--it might sound too “socialistic” for the public taste. “‘His success or failure will depend on how effectively he deals with this coming crisis,” Choi said.

Yet Kim’s political position is delicate, if not precarious. His government is the result of a coalition between his progressive, left-leaning National Congress for New Politics and the deeply conservative United Liberal Democrats, led by Kim Jong Pil. Even supporters wonder how long the odd-fellow marriage can survive in a nation that has never before had a coalition government and in which the very word “compromise” has, until recently, meant “sellout.”

The opposition has begun playing hardball even before Kim Dae Jung takes the oath of office. On Monday, prosecutors cleared him of claims by the Grand National Party that he took bribes from businesses and stashed millions of dollars’ worth of slush funds in illegal accounts. But that party, which controls 161 of the 299 seats in the National Assembly, decided last week to refuse to confirm the nomination of Kim Jong Pil as prime minister. Kim Dae Jung publicly promised the post to his former rival last fall as part of the coalition deal.

The nomination vote, expected to be held within hours of the inauguration ceremony Wednesday, is being seen as a crucial test of the new president’s political clout.

Opposition leaders object to Kim Jong Pil’s background--he helped his uncle, Park Chun Hee, seize power in a 1961 coup, then ran the Korean Central Intelligence Agency--and they believe an economist would be more deft than an old-line politician in defusing the financial crisis.

But Kim Dae Jung and his allies say the president-elect campaigned and won with a platform based on the “DJP coalition,” as the deal between the two Kims is called here. “If the opposition party refuses to confirm Mr. Kim Jong Pil, that is against the will of the people,” declared Lee Jong Chan, chairman of the presidential transition team.

Lee Hoi Chang, the Grand National Party presidential candidate who lost to Kim, retorted: “People were electing Kim Dae Jung as president, rather than endorsing the coalition.” Lee was invited but won’t attend the inauguration; he is jetting off to Berkeley to accept an award. In an interview Saturday, he insisted that the opposition was not trying to torpedo the new president.

“As the opposition party, we have a duty to check and watch the government,” Lee said in English. “If DJ [Kim Dae Jung] and his government go the right way, we’ll be soft.”

Supporters’ Doubts

Some of Kim Dae Jung’s supporters have their own doubts about Kim Jong Pil. “JP’s party is not so supportive of reform,” said Choi, who is on the 15-member committee that helped draft Kim Dae Jung’s inaugural address. “It’s the pipeline for the interests of the establishment, including the chaebol,” powerful Korean conglomerates whose profligate borrowing and inefficiencies are blamed in part for Korea’s economic dive. “The question is how long the coalition can last,” Choi said. He gives it two years; others are less optimistic.

That Kim Jong Pil’s support gave Kim Dae Jung the edge he needed to win is undisputed. Kim’s margin of victory was just 1.6% of the vote; he would have lost had he not carried Kim Jong Pil’s stronghold in Chungchong province--formerly hostile territory.

With the parliament in opposition hands, Kim Dae Jung still needs his ally’s votes--and the political protection on his vulnerable right flank.

Aides say Kim Jong Pil may serve temporarily as acting prime minister, while the president takes his case to the public. But until the prime minister is confirmed, the rest of the Cabinet cannot be appointed. “It will be very damaging to the new DJ government,” said Chung Tae Chul, a vice president of the National Congress for New Politics.

The opposition Grand National Party is internally divided, with candidate Lee and party President Cho Soon, among others, reportedly tussling over the leadership. Lee denied Korean media accounts of a rift with Cho but said the defeated ruling party will have to rebuild itself into an effective opposition. Even so, it appears unlikely that Kim can woo enough defectors to loosen the Grand National grip on parliamentary power any time soon.

But Kim has even more headaches: While outgoing President Kim is reviled now, he did succeed in kicking the military out of politics. But he had notably less success in reforming Korea’s inefficient, immobile bureaucracy, now seen as key to unshackling the economy.

So far, the president-elect has also failed to get some administrative reforms he wanted--including creation of a Korean equivalent of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget under full presidential control. Park Jai Chang, of Sook Myung Women’s University, warns that Kim has already made compromises that may later hinder his ability to force a potentially recalcitrant bureaucracy to implement his reforms.

Nor will it be easy to coax the powerful conglomerates to change their octopus-like structure or allegedly domineering ways--though Kim claims progress is being made. “The era of the chaebol has ended,” Kim declared in an interview with a German magazine that was reported by Korean media Sunday, and he vowed that conglomerates will no longer receive special government favors.

“If a president tried to do this under normal circumstances, he would be risking his life,” said Chung. “That’s why we call the IMF ‘Santa Claus.’ Thanks to the IMF, the chaebol’s influence is limited, and so Kim Dae Jung has a chance to succeed.”

Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.