Monday, Jun. 24, 2002
Industrialist, parliamentarian, and suave football diplomat who brought the World Cup to South Korea, Chung Mong Joon wants you to know he's also a jock. Flying down to southern Cheju Island from Seoul to watch a football game a week before the Cup, Chung, 50, is leaning back in his seat and pointing to his left elbow, which he banged up playing basketball. He shifts his left shoulder: crushed bones and severed tendons in a ski-racing accident. Then there's the right knee fractured by a football tackle. Pointing to a scar on his right hand, he smiles boyishly: "Street boxing." Street boxing? "In college, I was a good boxer," he says, then leans forward, grinning. Well, actually, he confides, there was this girl, you see, and he bumped into her jealous boyfriend: "I got into a street fight with the guy." The grin widens. That's pure Chung: charming, disarmingly frank, with just a touch of self-deprecation.
It's probably a good thing Chung is used to hard knocks. For months, the co-chairman of South Korea's World Cup Organizing Committee has been dropping coy hints about running in the country's presidential election this December—an election that will likely be as rough-and-tumble as an England-Argentina match. Now that South Korea's can-do football team has battled its way to the semifinals, the nation is awash in feel-good vibes and a newfound sense of national unity. All that is rubbing off on Chung. The latest polls give him 15% in a race with the two main presidential candidates—and he hasn't even said he's running yet. Says Lee Nae Young, an expert on Korean politics at Korea University in Seoul: "If he runs, he could be political dynamite."
The widening corruption scandal swirling around President Kim Dae Jung and his Millenium Democratic Party (MDP) has boosted the buzz level. Last week, prosecutors arrested presidential son Kim Hong Up on charges of bribery and influence-peddling. He joins Kim Hong Gul, the President's youngest son, now under indictment for bribery. The scandal has deflated support for MDP presidential candidate Roh Moo Hyun, widely seen as President Kim's horse in the December poll (Kim is constitutionally barred from running again). Party members are also alarmed about the shellacking the MDP got in local elections in early June. The smart money in Seoul says if Roh can't work some magic in by-elections scheduled for Aug. 8, the MDP could dump him and try to woo Chung.
The son of the founder of the Hyundai conglomerate, Chung would bring more to the table than just cool sports scars. Until 1988, he successfully ran Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's biggest shipbuilder—which gives him credibility among conservative voters who want a financially savvy candidate. With younger voters, Chung can position himself as a fresh face who has steered clear of Seoul's merry-go-round of political corruption. "Economically he emphasizes growth, politically he pushes reform," says Cho Ki Suk, an expert on Korean politics at Seoul's Ewha University. "If he persuades people he can do both, he has a very good chance."
Chung also happens to be young (read: under 70), handsome and polished—rare attributes in Korean politics. When Cho invited Chung to speak at her university last year, she was stunned to see the crowd of cheering, chanting students he attracted: "It was like he was a sports star or an entertainer." Han Sang Jin, a former actor who created the first Chung Mong Joon fan club, says he was impressed when he saw his hero at a football game: "He seems to be one of us, despite all his title and money. People can just walk up to him and start a conversation."
Plenty of other scenarios could emerge. Chung and other rising political stars like Park Geun Hye, daughter of former autocrat Park Chung Hee might engineer a new party to fight the election. If South Korea's Prince Charming does enter the fray, the outsider aura he's enjoying now could burn off. And, as one MDP insider and Chung skeptic puts it: "The Korean public can distinguish between sports and politics." But stretching out in his seat on the plane to Cheju, Chung already sounds like he's on the stump, talking about improving standards of living, tackling what he sees as a "crisis of leadership in Korean politics, in the economy, in society." Suddenly serious, he says the key task for a President is this: "To bring Koreans together." If you look at the millions of his compatriots gathered in the streets to cheer on their football heroes, you could argue he's already done that.
- DONALD MACINTYRE/CHEJU ISLAND
- Can football supremo Chung Mong Joon save Korea's ruling party?
