政治改革のチェック•システムとしての選挙

「多党化時代」を反映した韓国の一九九二年総選挙

抄録

In a nation where its electoral system and party politics have been stable for a long time, change in voting action can be seen as an index for change in the voter's support for political parties. But in a country like Korea, where its electoral system and party politics are still in flux, the result of an election tend to indicate not only the competition among political parties but also a change in the power structure as well as the voters' reaction toward political reform.
Korea's 14th National Assembly election in March 1992 was not simply the usual process of selecting the nation's diet members. The election was practically a plebiscite for Koreans to evaluate the unification by the leading party and the two oppositions in 1990.
The ruling DLP was massively defeated in the election of the 14th National Assembly in which approximately 28.43 million people voted, posting a voting rate of 71.9%. The DLP failed to maintain the majority of the parliamentary seats it had achieved to acquire through the unification of three parties in 1990. The result was the reemergence of a small ruling party and a large opposition force, the pattern formed after the last general election in April, 1988.
In contrast to the existing political parties which performed poorly in the election, a newly formed United People's Party and independent candidates showed a significant progress. The large amount of votes that rejected the existing parties represent the voter's new move demanding political reform through election.
The nation's regionalism, caused mainly by the political, social and economic imbalances that exist among the different regions of the nation, has been the roots of the diversification of the voters' support for political parties.
The voting action of the Korean electors have, for the past 10 years, indicated the diversification of the parties they support, or the trend for multiparty system. The voters' diversified support for political parties reflect a change in the quality of the peoples' voting action. The change coincides with the change in Korea's social structure that resulted from the nation's economic development.
The unification of the three parties in 1990 was, therefore, an action adversary to the social and economic trend in a sense that it ignored the change in the Korean people's voting action.
The three leaders of the parties involved in the unification performed poorly in each of their home constituencies, or their strongest basis for support. The leaders' retreat means that the voters did not endorse the parties' decision.
The progress of the United People's Party proved that the floating votes created by the voter's protest toward an arbitrary political reform tend to concentrate on the new party, helped by the voters' expectation for the establishment of a new political influence.
Therefore, it can be evaluated, the analysis in this report indicates, that an election in Korea functions as a Kind of “check system” for the Korean voters to reject the political reform which is actually an arbitrary manipulation of the political front.
The diversification of voters' support for political parties is a reflection of regionalism and the social economic class system. This fact should be respected as the peoples' various demand for the nation's new political activity.
Thus, it can be understood, that the Korean politics now has two goals to achieve: diversification of power structure and stabilization of the political situation. Each political party need to establish, along with competition, a basis for cooneration so as to create a stable political system.