The sinking of South Korean Corvette Cheonan

AssassinsMace said:

Asia Times Online :: Korea News and Korean Business and Economy, Pyongyang News

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Beyond using the incident as a 9/11-type opportunity for galvanizing public opinion in favor of his administration and policies in the run-up to local elections

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S. Korea’s Governing Party Surprised by Election
By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: June 2, 2010

SEOUL, South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak’s party has suffered a surprising setback in local elections that were widely seen as a referendum on his handling of North Korea’s alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship.

Results from the elections were released on Thursday, and the voter turnout of 54.5 percent was the highest for local elections in 15 years.

Candidates of Mr. Lee’s governing Grand National Party had hoped that outrage in South Korea over the sinking of the Cheonan, which killed 46 South Korean sailors, would help them ride a conservative wave to victory. Mr. Lee’s government has formally accused North Korea of attacking the ship on March 26 with a torpedo from a submarine, a charge that the North has denied.

“The election results were far less than we had expected and hoped for,” Cho Hae-jin, a spokesman for the governing party, said. The party’s chairman, Chung Mong-joon, an important ally of Mr. Lee, said he was stepping down over the poor results. Mr. Lee’s chief of staff, Chung Chung-kil, also offered to resign.

Pre-election surveys showed that a majority of South Koreans blamed North Korea for the warship incident, which the government characterized as the worst North Korean military provocation since the end of the Korean War. Those surveys and political analysts had predicted that the president’s party would win at least 9 of 16 crucial races to elect big-city mayors and provincial governors in the voting on Wednesday.

But the party won only six of the elections. Its main rival, the Democratic Party, won seven. The remaining three races were won by two independents and a candidate from a small opposition party.

The results were a blow to Mr. Lee’s efforts to rally popular support for his campaign to punish North Korea. He also wanted a fresh mandate to push through his controversial $19 billion project to dredge and dam the country’s four main rivers.

The mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, a member of Mr. Lee’s party, barely won re-election. But in a hotly contested mayoral race in Incheon, a large port city west of Seoul, the opposition candidate, Song Young-gil, a strong critic of Mr. Lee, won an unexpected victory. The ship’s sinking was an especially significant election issue there, because the ship went down within Incheon’s jurisdiction.

Both of the central Chungcheong provinces also rejected governing-party candidates. They were unhappy that Mr. Lee canceled the previous government’s plan to relocate several central government agencies to a new town to be built in the region.

Nationwide, about 9,900 candidates campaigned for 3,991 posts, including contests for mayor in small cities, as well as members of city councils and education chiefs. In most of those smaller races, too, the opposition prevailed.

Local elections in South Korea are often seen as a midterm referendum on the president. Political analysts said that even before the Cheonan sinking, as the nation’s economy recovered relatively quickly from the global recession, Mr. Lee’s approval ratings hovered around 50 percent and his party appeared to have a decent chance to win.

But when the Cheonan sank, Mr. Lee’s party turned it into a dominating campaign theme to tamp down the domestic disputes, such as the river dredging project. Its candidates lambasted opposition rivals who championed engagement with North Korea.

Opposition politicians contended that Mr. Lee’s hard-line approach to North Koreahad helped provoke the North to lash out.

“Yes, people agreed with the president that the North needed punishing,” said Jeong Chan-soo, a senior analyst at the political consultancy MIN Consulting. “But when the government announced its investigative results on the same day when the election campaign began, and when President Lee chose the Korean War Museum as the venue to deliver his speech to criticize North Korea, they thought he was overreacting.

“They felt a risk of war,” Mr. Jeong added. “They thought they needed to rein in their president.”

“This is the people’s verdict on Lee Myung-bak’s arrogance,” said Woo Sang-ho, a spokesman for the Democratic Party.

Chung Se-kyun, the leader of the Democratic Party, said the results indicated that Mr. Lee should “abandon his confrontational policy on North Korea and ease tensions on the Korean peninsula.”

Security concerns about North Korea had influenced previous elections in the South, almost always helping conservative candidates in a phenomenon known as “the North Wind.”

Panicked opposition candidates accused Mr. Lee of exploiting the sinking to raise tensions for political gains. And North Korea joined the fray, urging South Koreans to “deal sledgehammer blows” against Mr. Lee.

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Spartan95 said:

Can't help but notice that the article was published on 3 Jun.

And here's the result of the local election in RoK in early Jun:

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Looks like democracy in RoK may actually provide impetus for them to hand over on a silver platter what the authoritarain DPRK wants....

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AssassinsMace said:

According to this article it seems like a lot of positive stuff can happen for South Korea because of this incident. Seems strange how so much can be riding on what some say they would never want to see happen.

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PanAsian said:

Plausible deniability is the hallmark of a good setup to frame someone. South Korea can only gain by claiming the Cheonan as an attack by North Korea (no matter whether it is true or not), and that's ample motive.

Korea has historically been caught between China and Japan. And in a way, the division of North and South Korea can be seen in the same light. However, a unified Korea with US backing can trump both China and Japan. That's a pretty big reward for South Korea to risk short term intense pain in order to reclaim North Korea.

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planeman said:

Conspiracy theories need you to believe:

a) that either ROK or USA wants a potentially nuclear war with DPRK
b) or, is willing to risk that to...
c) because USA wants to remain in Japan/Okinawa/wherever
d) and that the cost of a warship and the lives of half its crew were expendable
e) and that the torpedo is a ROK/USN/Western type yet none of the thousands of personnel or foreign governments has recognised the model of torpedo...
f) or that the torpedo was coincidentally there from some past incident
g) or that a US submarine did the dirty deed but no-one has leaked this from within US military.... or the people re-arming the sub etc etc
h) that despite being innocent DPRK hasn't got any evidence to prove it
g) and that no third power with satellites active over DPRK (China, Russia, France, UK, commercial??) has refuted the claim that three DPRK subs put to sea before the incident etc
i) that ROK planned it.... and yet ROK government pretends to be caught off-guard and flounders in PR, is indecisive of outcome, waits a month before formally accusing DPRK, prefers to take the matter to the UN and ask for an apology...


Micro-analysing fragments of an investigation/media reporting does not make a credible conspiracy theory unless there is a credible motive on the part of the conspirator which is plausible when considering the cost-benefit-risk profile of the action. Who uses your own citizens to kill 46 other of your own citizens at the risk of it leaking, just to influence a local election???

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