SOUTH Korea has taken another step towards becoming a fully-fledged democracy with the crushing defeat of its ruling Democratic Liberal Party in the first local elections since the restoration of civilian rule.
Some will interpret this as a sign that President Kim Young-sam risks becoming a lame-duck in the second half of his presidency. While he remains respected for leading his country away from more than three decades of military rule, President Kim's popularity has been eroded by his domineering style and recent tax investigations of his rivals, as well as by accusations that the pace of democratic reforms has shown signs of slowing.
Certainly, the sweeping victory of the opposition Democratic Party is likely to lead to a resurgence in the fortunes of veteran opposition politician Kim Dae-jung, who is now expected to re-emerge from retirement to be a serious contender at the next presidential elections in 1997. Yet it is dangerous to read too much into such mid-term results. Leaders of longer-developed democracies, such as Britain and the United States, are commonly hammered in local and by-elections - only to regain their popularity, and retain power at the next general or presidential election.
Perhaps that is why President Kim reacted so calmly to the results, preferring to stress his feelings of 'pride for restoring local autonomy', while a party spokesman pledged to 'respect the will of the people shown in the results'.
Democracy is still a relatively recent concept in South Korea and, until now, the idea of a protest vote has been totally unknown. But that is what these local election results would have been labelled in any other country.
By sending President Kim a mid-term message of dissatisfaction, the people of South Korea have given him a chance to shape up his act and regain the democratic initiative, before they decide whether to re-elect him in two years' time.
