ADRN

With the presidential election six months away, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye are the country’s most influential politicians, a recent poll found. Former President Kim Dae-jung and President Roh Moo-hyun also ranked highly.

The JoongAng Ilbo and the East Asia Institute last month asked people to rate 11 prominent Korean politicians on a scale of 0 to 10 in both influence and public confidence.

Lee received an average of 6.24 points for his influence on Korean politics and 5.64 for public confidence. Park received an average of 5.7 for influence and 5.38 for public confidence.

Lee Hoi-chang, the former Grand National Party chairman who lost two presidential elections in 1997 and 2002, was ranked fifth in influence and third in public confidence.

"It is such a vivid depiction of the people's distrust of politicians," said Lee Nae-young, a professor of politics at Korea University, pointing out that even Lee and Park scored below 6 in public confidence. "This shows that not a single politician is trusted deeply by the public."

"Koreans have traditionally valued each political leader's qualifications rather than the political system," Lee said. "This poll shows how much Korea’s politics have eroded."

The low scores in influence and in public confidence that the more liberal politicians received is also a problem, he said. "Other than Sohn Hak-kyu, the liberal politicians scored below 3 points in both influence and public confidence," Lee said.

"Those bidding to become the next president were seen as less influential and trusted than the current president at the end of his term. It is hard to understand why so many liberal candidates are still running for the presidency with such an evaluation."

Sohn rated sixth on the list for influence, with a score of 3.19, and fifth in public confidence, with a score of 3.15.

Lee also said Koreans are undeniably nostalgic about politicians of the past. "The people are disappointed and skeptical about contemporary politicians," Lee said. "And that appears to be translating to an attachment for the politicians of the past." Lee said the high rankings for Kim Dae-jung and Lee Hoi-chang were the result of such sentiment.

While Han Myeong-sook, the former prime minister, got a much higher score for trust than influence, it was the other way around for Roh.

The telephone survey of 944 people over the age of 19 nationwide was conducted from June 26 to 27. The poll has a 95 percent confidence level, with a 3.2 percentage point margin of error.

By Shin Chang-won, Ser Myo-ja