On March 10th, the Democratic United Party and United Progressive Party agreed to fight the April 11th South Korean legislative election on a combined platform, including overseeing the implementation of existing inter-Korean agreements.
The combined policy platform signals the revival of an engagement policy that fell from grace with the election of the conservative Lee Myung Bak government in 2008. In it, the liberal coalition promises to employ the implementation of the agreements which emerged from summit meetings between Kim Jong Il and Kim Dae Jung in 2000 and Roh Moo Hyun in 2007 to reinvigorate inter-Korean cooperation.
It also vows to “pursue a peace-oriented independent foreign policy and make groundbreaking improvements to inter-Korean relations based on denuclearization and the construction of a peace system” while “strengthening cooperation between the two Koreas and other East Asian states.”
It also retains many of the policies emphatically supported by the Democratic Labor Party prior to the founding of the United Progressive Party, which it formed in collaboration with the party of former President Roh and the New Progressive Party. These policies include free school lunches, day care and medical treatment, half-price university tuition fees and the reform of South Korea’s powerful ‘chaebol’ conglomerate companies.
The agreement makes no reference to the controversial KORUS-FTA, with the exception of stating overall opposition to its enactment.
In discussion with Daily NK today, Myungji University’s Prof. Kang Kyu Hyeong sounded a negative note, commenting, “With not long to go before the election, the Democratic Party has yielded to the progressive party in some way in almost every area. It’s a kind of collusion; they are leaning on a party with 3% of the vote in order to win any way they can.”
