KOREA FOCUS

In each presidential election year, overseas Korean communities get into a fuss. Political news stories from Seoul are relayed almost simultaneously to the Korean communities in New York to Los Angeles, where ethnic Koreans are divided along political lines. Leaders of the Korean communities visit Seoul frequently in the run-up to the election.   

 

In New York, where I lived for about 20 years, the mood is more agitated. Korean Americans in New York saw Park Jie-won, who once headed the local Korean American association, rise to the top of political power as a lawmaker, cabinet minister and presidential chief of staff. Kim Hyuk-kyu, another local Korean community leader, served as a presidential secretary and governor of South Gyeongsang Province.

 

Overseas Koreans who are well connected with Korean politics come to the country and assume posts such as "special assistants" to presidential candidates. Some of them are offered posts at government agencies if not the presidential office. Some are nominated by political parties and run in elections. If not, they stay in Seoul until they get a good job.

 

Overseas Koreans will exercise their voting right in three years. Establishing a government agency dealing with ethnic Koreans living in foreign countries, granting overseas Koreans dual citizenship and voting rights have been a longstanding topic of discussion. The Lee Myung-bak government is so generous that it has granted voting rights to overseas Koreans. Leaders of local Korean communities overseas and people who chase political power are busy visiting Seoul lately.  

 

Being a former president of the Korean American Association in New York, I would like to point to problems regarding these recent developments. First, the government will face difficulties administering voting by overseas Koreans. There are only a small number of Korean consular officials in each foreign country. Besides, how would they install the polling booths, transport polling boxes and count the ballots in such a big country as the United States? How would they prevent voting irregularities?

 

I also wonder how they are going to prepare the list of registered voters and keep people from casting more than one vote. They may get some help from local Korean associations, but few of them have a decent office or full-time staff.

 

The number of Koreans overseas is said to stand at some 7 million. But nobody knows their exact number. The Foreign Ministry simply compiles figures collected by consulates through local Korean associations. Some say sarcastically that the number of overseas Koreans increases by thousands and tens of thousands whenever a new head of local association is elected. The government should pay heed to this.

 

[ Hankook Ilbo, September 19, 2009 ]