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A survey showed that Myongjians gave a C+ to the DJ government overall, though they gave good marks to DJ's ability in overcoming the current financial crisis. However, it was shown that what the Myongjians want most of all is political reform.
Concerning the economy, 52% of the Myongjians referred DJ's economic policy, while 42% deemed it just passable. 57% replied that the Big Deal is needed for economic resurrection, while 29% saw it as the government's one-sided demand.
Regarding the capital and labor problems of 1998, the majority of Myongjians gave a "so so" vote to the government's solution. These responses show the new government's efforts in trying to solve the economic crisis, but also show their lack of sufficient
countermeasures to protect the interests of laborers who are troubled by high unemployment rates and heavy restructuring.
In politics, the opinion that the parliamentary cabinet system should be put on hold for now is being discussed again. Also, 71% of Myongjians support the government's east-west unity policy and DJ's statement that he will use judicial power if politicians make any controversial statements concerning regional animosity.
Regarding North Korea, 67% replied that they support the Sunshine Policy, but 56% of Myongjians replied that they saw no changes in the North Korean Policy at all during the past year.
When questioned about DJ's ideology, 42% of the surveyed students said they had no problems with it, while another 42% said they did not know. These mixed results show that possibility of a conflict should there be an ideological controversy. 45% also
replied that they think DJ is of the "middle right-wing".
Excepting the economy, Myongjians gave the usual marks of "so so" for most areas, including issues of conscientious prisoners' pardon, personnel change, educational reform, and employment problem.
57% of the surveyed students sympathized with DJ's Second National Reconstruction movement. 61% replied that there is no political party that they like. Perhaps the last statistic reflects the students' disillusionment with the present political
situation in which politicians would rather blame the opposing parties than work together for the betterment of the country.

"The Year After: President Kim Dae Jung and Political Reform"

People still remember a year ago or so, when the new President, Kim Dae Jung, was sworn into office, promising a brighter outlook amid the worst economic crisis ever. These days, the administration boasts six major accomplishments, closing the first year of the self-named "People's Government," namely, the foundation for economic recovery, structural reforms, deregulations, unemployment relief, summit diplomacy and human rights improvement measures. Yet, the Korean public seems anxious and doubtful about
what has really been. During the past year what we saw were the same old themes of corruption, political confrontation and ineffectiveness, and labor protest as before. Especially, even though before anything else president Kim has emphasized the
importance of harmonious national unity among different regions and groups, facts and figures show that the poltical circles in his term ware unproductive while a number of issues awaited political solution to put the national economy on the right track. Politics have not offered comfort or reassurance for the Korean people. Furthermore, after a full year of his presidency, there seems to be a growing gap between expectations for the
President, and what he is actually doing. The discrepancy is detected more notably in the political reform drive.
Since the birth of the Republic in 1948, corruption has been so pervasive among politicians and public officials that the country is labeled as the "Republic of Corruption" and the "Republic of Bribery." Remnants of this dreadful legacy still linger. Politicians
are largely blamed for the prevalence of corruption. In a sense, the current economic crisis had been caused by collusive links among politicians, businesses and banks. The continued presence of these "polluticians" in the political arena contributes cynicism.
People do not trust them any longer. Only the credibility of reforms to enhance transparency can clean up the malpractices and restore the confidence of the Korean people, Calls for transparency in government are nothing new in Korea. Such calls
have been at the core of the democratization movements in the past two decades. Establishing a high degree of transparency in government policies and their decision-making processes is at the core of anti-corruption initiatives. However, it failed to
deliver on the president's constant and stern vows of reforms. The reason is that people still doubt the neutrality and impartiality of the cleanup drive, even though the top government officials denied involvement in the investigation by the governmental authorities. As long as the public tends to believe that the law enforcement authorities are always ready to serve the political interest of the President and the ruling party mainly targeting the opposition, it is not convinced that the government's
anti-corruption reform campaign has been making much progress.
Political reforms should be of paramount concern to President Kim as he executes the campaign of the "2nd Nation-Building Movement". Such changes do not take place overnight. To carry out reforms successfully, he must defeat nepotism which includes personal, academic and regional connections. At the same time, he should consider adopting a similar posture like the "Sunshine Policy" toward the opposition. To avoid
repeating the mistakes in the past, people's voluntary participation and the opposition's cooperation in the reform drive must be regarded as necessary elements. All in all, the Korean public really do wish to see a respectable ex-President.

Head- DJ Government must listen to the voice of laborers.

President Kim Dae Jung's inauguration speech on the joint progress of democracy and the market economy gave us hope that his policies will be different from those of his predecessors. But a year into his presidential term, it is becoming more and more clear they were empty words. The Union-Management-Political Committee, which was created for the express purpose of dealing with the economic crisis through the unification of labor unions, the company management and political leaders, is not
working out as hoped. In February 1998, the Committee decided to go forward with the controversial mass personnel reduction and foreign labor dispatch policies, which were very difficult for laborers to accept. Their eventual acceptance was the result of
promises of the legalization of all labor unions and the political participation of laborers in all further economic reforms.
The new policies were implemented before the week was out, but the promised reforms were not even introduced before the National Assembly. The only thing that the Union-Management-Political Committee achieved was the sacrifice of powerless laborers.
The government has also stated that it will actively support the reform of 5 chaeboel companies, but such a policy is unfair and ignores completely small businesses. The chaeboels and their wasteful investments are the direct cause of the current
economical crisis. Instead of taking legal action against them, the government seeks to again give them even more special breaks.
The one-sided Big Deal policy which excludes labor unions from the process of implementing the reforms, completely ignores the rights of several hundred thousand workers. Democracy is seemingly lost while only the idea of the market economy
flourishes. It is predicted that two to three hundred thousand workers will be unemployed through the reforms, and the government says there is nothing it can do about it. The current unemployment rate is already over 8% according to government statistics, and it is expected to rise even higher to reach its peak during the first half of this year. Less than 30% of all unemployed are getting any kind of social benefits from the government, and the policies demanded by labor unions, such as shortening of work hours, are not even being considered. Such one-sided and unfair economical-labor policies on the part of the government will not help but rather hinder efforts to improve the economy.
The government should no longer ignore the current problems but carry out its promises to laborers and listen to them when forming policies for economical reform in the future.

DJ government must concentrate on the people's environmental rights

When one looks at the DJ government's environmental policies, one can not help being confused by seemingly self-contradictory results. The policies seem to concentrate on protection of the natural environment when the issue is water and air pollution, yet
protected land is being freed from greenbelt restraints at the same time, giving free rein to such pollution.
At the beginning of DJ's presidential term, people believed that there would be substantial changes for the better. However, environmental policies have not improved at all since the change of power.
The reformation programs being put forth by the DJ government makes the economy the primary and only issue, choosing to sacrifice social issues such as environmental protection for the time being.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the problem is that the DJ government is concentrating on relaxing or even eliminating various environmental regulations towards the goal of attracting foreign investments and helping the economy. Unfortunately this relaxing of regulations is being carried out without any clear plan, and has even affected areas that should not be changed. The committee overseeing the relaxing of
regulations is not discriminating between what is needed and not. The Department of Environment is apparently agreeing with such policies. According to the current direction, 58.8% of all environmental regulations will be eliminated or relaxed by the end
of this year, bringing despair to the environmental groups. Also, the absence of even one environmental expert out of the four environmental representatives on the Regulation Development Committee shows the government's lack of concern for the environment.
The government must discard its mistaken idea that the environment can be saved by merely addressing the water supply or the garbage issue. The future of our country's economy must be environmentally friendly economic growth. It is true that many people are disillusioned and even disbelieving towards the government's environmental policies. The previous governments tried in many systematic ways to save the environment, but failed to win the sympathy of the people by their failure to take decisive action. Even
with the best of programs, there will be no progress in our efforts to save the environment if the government fails to implement them.
With the new millenium just a year away, the government must work to assure the people's rights towards the environment. The guarantee of a quality environment must be an integral part of the national policy, and our government must strive towards that
goal.