Deep divides as S. Korea votes

Voters Thursday will replace South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in the closest race ever for high office here.

The election offers an emotive choice between two very different approaches to the future of this sea-locked state of 48 million, and to the US-led alliance on a peninsula often called the last outpost of the cold war. And it comes at a moment when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has opened a dangerous nuclear Pandora's box, and just days after young South Koreans staged the largest anti-US rally ever in Seoul.

"Depending on who becomes president, the direction of South Korea, in any number of issues, including North Korea, will be quite different," says Jung-Hoon Lee, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.

Essentially, this is a two-man race. Roh Moo-hyun of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party is the liberal candidate of "peace." Lee Hoi-chang of the Grand National Party (GNP) is a conservative candidate of "stability."

While their positions may seem rhetorically close, they hide a giant chasm. In fact, for a country exhibiting striking new forms of nationalist pride, much about this race, once called a shoo-in for Mr. Lee, is unfolding as strikingly divisive. Gaps between generations, regions, classes, and attitudes about the US and the North run deep beneath the surface.

The race sets young Koreans weaned after the 1954 war era - who back diligent peace talkers like Mr. Roh - against older Koreans who knew years of hardship and fear of attack, and who want a leader who won't be fooled by the North.

How to handle the North has been a prime question in the campaign. Roh is a firm supporter of outgoing Kim Dae Jung's Sunshine Policy of engagement - critics now call it appeasement - with the North. He advocates a continued stream of funding, aid, and diplomatic ties - to hold back criticism and not isolate the North, regardless of its often threatening behavior.

Lee is more skeptical, arguing that the North's Kim Jong Il has been steadily manipulating and milking the South, that the Sunshine Policy is a failure, and that while engagement with the North should continue, it should do so under a policy of reciprocity - requiring the North to show concrete improvements in human rights, refugee issues, kidnapping claims, denuclearization, and opening up, in exchange for help.

The presidency carries far greater power in Korea than in the West. There are fewer checks and balances on the executive branch. Presidents here can stamp their vision and values strongly on the nation to a degree not found in the West. They also work with a national assembly much weaker than, say, the US Congress.

This strong-rule tradition enabled Kim Dae Jung to push his Sunshine Policy in 2000, and will just as likely influence the next presidency. "With the election this week, both candidates want to show they can play to the center. But once in power, they will shift to their basic beliefs. So this is an important vote," says Mr. Jung-Hoon.

Last week, the North's "dear leader" added a dimension to the race that has yet to be weighed by announcing that he would unseal some 8,000 spent plutonium fuel rods and turn off the cameras that safeguard them. A day earlier, Kim Jong Il said he would restart a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, 50 miles north of Pyongyang, that was shut down in 1995 after a treaty with the US.

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