Lawyer Park is afraid more youths will turn their back on politics. If that happens we'll resemble Japan where the politics is so bad, but people don't get angry. To prevent Japan-style stasis, Park's People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy plans a major campaign at local and presidential elections next year, including a reprise of its blacklisting of 86 candidates at last year's general election which resulted in 59 of them losing. The movement hopes to exploit voter anger, while it's still there, to forge political changes which in South Korea are key to economic reforms. Lawmakers are still more focused on currying favour with party bosses than on the public good.
Power is concentrated on the president.
If he fails to force political and economic reform, the National Assembly is powerless to intervene. Progressives see a huge opportunity lost to consolidate democracy and the market economy, as the more conservative Grand National Party is favoured to win the next presidential election. We're almost out of hope. At least in the past we could expect the next government to be better. But this time we expect it to be even less daring.