General Elections and Absence of Political Competition
 
By Cho Jung-kwan, Associate Professor, Dept. of Political Science and Diplomacy
 
The April 11 general elections are coming. Candidates contesting to represent the 246 local constituencies began their official campaignings for the elections on March 29. Our community, Gwangju-Chonnam region, will come to choose its 20 district representatives and political parties it favors as well to elect proportional representatives.
Our constitution, the most fundamental governing principle of the nation, unequivocally articulates that the sovereignty of the nation resides in the people, and all state authority emanates from the people (Article 1). It is by means of elections in this land of democratic republic that the people exercise their sovereign power. On the other hand, the constitution also explicitly states that all state authority must be used to promote social welfare (Article 34). As many prominent political theorists have observed, however, it is never clear what is meant by "social welfare," nor is there any given way to "promote" it. In fact, it is also by means of elections in this land of democratic republic that the people embody their sovereign will to articulate what “social welfare” must be for whom and how to maximize it by whom.
As the general elections are getting close, such crucial importance of elections makes me uneasy about one thing directly related with our community. I am concerned with absence of political competition in our region. To be sure, I recognize that one–party domination, or absence of political competition, is not a legacy the people of our region will lose in the next few days. Because the one-party loyalty is a remembrance of tears and bloods we have shed together for a generation in the long march to democratization of this nation. The loyalty is both a pride and a pain to us who can never forget the sacrifice our brothers and sisters made in the May of 1980 for our democracy. Despite the pride and the pain I also have kept in my heart, I cannot help pointing out the fact that the one-party loyalty has become a burden of the past we have to take off our shoulder to make our democracy better. 
Competition is the keystone of election which is life of our democracy. Even if we the people with sovereignty could by means of elections define what social welfare must be, and agree upon methods of maximizing it, what indeed guarantees that the elected officials who run the government would be motivated to promote it? Political parties and individual politicians run for election because they want to increase their political influence. When they compete in elections, some of them are more concerned with their personal gains they will derive from an elected office than with fulfilling the immediate duties of the office. What makes them loyal to their constituencies is nothing but competition in which they truly fear of losing their offices. Under absence of substantial political competition in the one-party domination, individual politicians’ concerns are to be all about winning nomination of the dominant party which has no fear of defeat and has no intense motivation to increase its political representation of the people it serves. Under this circumstance the main trends of our regional politics have tended to outflank the representative democracy.
There has been a growing dissatisfaction with the results of the one-party domination in the region. An increasing number of people are noting the breakdown of party responsibility and discipline and the growth of corruptions in local governments. It is necessary to reexamine the legitimacy and functions of the one-party domination in the light of the present-day environment, national and local. The one-party monopoly has resulted in concentration of political power in pivotal intraparty groups and fostered the blight of political and socio-economic corruptions of our entire region by the groups in power. In absence of political competition some of them have acted like they have any special privilege to dominate the regional politics. Since absence of political competition means no existence of powerful critics of the groups in power, some of them have shamelessly sold even public offices for their personal political and economic gains. If there has been any political competition, it has only exited between factions of the intraparty groups in rough-and-tumble primaries for official party nominations. Under the one-party domination and absence of political competition they have betrayed and humiliated the pride and the pain the people of this region have kept in their hearts for the lost brothers and sisters of the May. This is not right both for the brothers and sisters of the May and for us who live in debt of their sacrifice.
In persistent agitations for change in the one-party domination, I have placed stress upon giving all parties of the region a real voice in elections to develop “a multi-party system” in present absence of political competition. An effective democratic election requires, first, that political parties are able to bring forth diverse programs to which diverse constituencies commit themselves and, second, that the parties possess sufficient potential to be a leading party to carry out these programs. The fundamental requirement of democratic election is a multi-party system in which any opposition party can act as a critic of the party in power, developing and presenting policy alternatives which give a true choice to the people. The most effective way to make the political party in power responsible to the people is an organized party opposition.
We must remember that we have fought for a generation for democracy, not for the handful intraparty groups of the one party. We must live in debt of the brothers and sisters of the May who sacrificed their lives in the fight for our democracy, not for personal gains of the intraparty groups. We must take the sacrifice and make it better for our democracy. These general elections are important because they can be the first step for us to stop the corrupted one-party domination. Democracy works by elections and elections work by political competition. Political power in absence of political competition can make corrupted even the most earnest politician on earth.
저작권자 © Chonnam Tribune 무단전재 및 재배포 금지